Analysis of the future development strategy of domestic chromatographic instruments

It is understood that today's chromatographic instruments are moving toward miniaturization and versatility. Different types of chromatographs have different characteristics. In general, China's chromatograph has a certain gap between its innovation and durability compared with foreign countries. Therefore, in China, opportunities and challenges coexist. So how can China's domestic chromatographs develop in the future?

I. Development of the Instrument Professor Zhu Yan of Zhejiang University made a report on “Ion Chromatography Instrument Development Trends at Home and Abroad and Our Strategy”. The report introduces the development trend of ion chromatography: the application of ion chromatography is gradually expanding, from a single environmental field. The development in many fields, especially the life sciences, has become the focus of future development. The miniaturization of ion chromatography and capillary ion chromatography have been adapted to the development of the times. With the maturation of the combination technology, the combination of ion chromatography with mass spectrometry and atomic fluorescence has become more common. In terms of the market, China's sales of ion chromatography ranks second in the world. Its annual growth rate ranks first in the world for ten years in a row. However, domestic production is dominated by small businesses. The grade and price of the equipment are low, and they lack competitiveness. At present, there are three original ion chromatographic technologies in China. We hope that the domestic ion chromatograph can redouble its efforts on this basis and develop a new type of ion chromatograph to surpass the international advanced level.

The report of Dr. Li Yu, Chairman and General Manager of Dalian Elite Analysis Instrument Co., Ltd., was entitled “Research Report on the Development of High-performance Liquid Chromatographic Instruments at Home and Abroad”. In the report, Dr. Li analyzed the development trend of dual-polarization presented by liquid chromatography in recent years: Larger and larger, the development of chromatographs has become large-scale, industrialized, and the smaller the smaller, the analytical liquid phase has begun to develop portable and chip types. Multidimensional separation and LC/MS are also trends in development. Dr. Li believes that the demand for liquid phase in the domestic market is still very large. Although there are many liquid chromatograph manufacturers in the country, they are small in scale and weak in technology. Most of them stay at the level of imitation imported instruments, thus lacking competitiveness and facing occupation. Importers who start high-end markets and expand into low-end and middle-end markets are not optimistic.

The presentation title of Ms. Lin Xuezhi, application center of Zhejiang Fuli Analytical Instrument Co., Ltd., was "Investigation Report on Development of Gas Chromatography Instruments at Home and Abroad". The report analyzed the development of the gas chromatograph and the market conditions. It is believed that the number of domestic sales of domestic gas chromatographs accounted for more than 60% of the domestic market. The domestic high-end gas chromatograph has also made initial progress. Even some domestically produced instruments have reached the world's advanced level. , and introduced the development of the company in gas chromatography.

Dr. Li Shengying, general manager of Jiangsu Hanbang Technology Co., Ltd., made a report on the development of supercritical fluid chromatography instruments at home and abroad. Dr. Li Shengying introduced the basic principles and development history of supercritical fluid chromatography (SFC) in the report. It should be said that SFC is complementary to gas chromatography and liquid chromatography, and it is highly efficient, rapid, and environmentally friendly, but it is currently used infrequently. There is still no commercialization in China. Therefore, there is still a long way to go for the development of domestic SFC.

Second, the development of technology Chinese Academy of Sciences Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics Guan Yafeng researcher on the "micro-chromatography instrument development" made a report. The report is divided into two parts: the micro GC and the miniaturization of liquid chromatography. The miniaturization of gas and liquid instruments and their related technologies are analyzed. Integration and chip is one of the ideas for miniaturization. It is also considered that other technologies can be used in the miniaturization process to help chromatographic instruments solve problems such as repeatability and stability.

Professor Fang Qun, the director of the Institute of Microanalysis Systems of Zhejiang University, reported on the "Research Report on the Development of Microfluidic Instruments at Home and Abroad". The report mainly introduces the development course of microfluidic technology, the application fields and the prospects for the future. As a technology, microfluidics has been widely used in capillary electrophoresis, PCR and other instruments. Up to now, there are fewer than 240 manufacturers of microfluidics in the world, and they are still in the initial stage. There are no industry standards and they are difficult to develop. However, it is believed that with the continuous expansion of market demand and the continuous development of related technologies, microfluidics The industrialization of technology will soon come.

Dr. Wang Qunjie, general manager of Bona Ejer Technology Co., Ltd. made a report on the "Technology Development Trends and Strategies of Liquid Chromatographic Separation Materials and Columns." The system introduced the development of liquid chromatography packing, the main manufacturers and the technical means adopted. From the silica matrix to the polymer matrix, from large particle size to sub-2-micron, from increased purity to bonded polar groups, every development of chromatographic packing solves a large number of practical problems and drives the continuous development of chromatographic instruments. . In the column market, there are many importers, and domestic brands need to be improved in terms of performance and influence. Dr. Wang also put forward his own idea at the end of the report: It is recommended that a unified column naming standard be established to allow users to understand the information of the column and regulate the entire column market.

III. Application Development The research topic of Zhang Lihua, a researcher of the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, is entitled “Progress in Liquid Chromatography and Prospects for the Development of High-end Instruments”. The report describes the current development of liquid chromatography in three aspects: liquid chromatography packing, liquid chromatography separation system, and LC/MS ion source. In terms of chromatographic packing, Liang Xinyi's researcher has made breakthroughs in the research of the spherical silica matrix and Zou Hanfa's researcher in the overall material matrix. The performance of the column using the new matrix is ​​superior to that of similar products in the market. On the separation system, Zhang Lihua, Xu Guowang, Zhang Xiangmin and many other researchers have tried multi-dimensional analysis, achieved good results, and saved costs. In addition, the report also introduced the newly developed “closed and adjustable atmosphere electrospray ionization source” developed by Zhejiang Haochuang Biotechnology Co., Ltd. The ion source placed the exit end of the emission needle at the stagnation point, so that the properties of the Taylor cone were not improved. Affected by the outside air flow, the stability of the ion flow is improved.