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High Speed Counter Current Chromatography (HSCCC) Machines

The research work by Dr. Yoichiro Ito into coil planetary centrifuges and the many possible column geometries lead to the development of a design where you rotate a coiled column on two axes. The direction of rotation is the same about both axes and is commonly known as the "J" configuration. Such machines became available in the 1980s and are known as high speed counter current chromatographs (hsccc).

These machines have a continuous length of tubing, the column, wound on a bobbin that rotates on its own axis, which itself rotates around a central axis in the same direction to achieve a planetary motion. This motion causes a mixing and settling step to occur within each loop of the coil (column). The motion also causes liquids (phases) of differing density to travel to opposite ends of the coil (column); it is through this phenomenon alone that the liquid stationary phase is retained within the coil.

The hsccc machines are designed to only run at g-levels of up to 80g. This means that in order to maintain a good stationary phase retention (essential for good resolution) the mobile phase flow rate has to be restricted. Unfortunately this means that typically separations take between 3 to 6 hours, a time scale generally unacceptable to industry. Other factors that weighed against the hsccc machines were the range of instruments available. Typically only preparative scale machines were available, requiring a gram of material to ensure effective use, which made method development difficult in comparison to other techniques such as HPLC that only require micro to milli grams. Consequently the technique ended being a niche market, in natural products or an academic tool rather than being used in the mainstream.

The advent of High Performance Counter Current Chromatographs (HPCCC) instruments operating at 240g have replaced this previous generation and enabled the technique to be used more widely.