High performance, ion-exchange chromatography of amino-acids in biological fluids using Chromakon 500- performance of the apparatus

The separation and quantitative measurement of aminoacids by ion-exchange chromatography has been in use for many years ]. However, the value of this method is limited by the time required for the analysis: 6 to 23 h. Other methods, such as gas chromatography, give results more rapidly, but do not allow the separation of all amino-acids [2]. The development of cation-exchange resins, capable of resisting high pressure, considerably shortens the time required to perform an analysis. In this study the performance of the Chromakon 500 (Kontron, Switzerland) with a cation-exchange resin (Kontron AS-70 [3]) is evaluated; 39 amino-acids and derivatives can be separated in less than 130 min (170 min including the regeneration time).