Dionex Introduces Two Specialty Silica-Based Columns for the Complete Separation of All 14 Explosives Listed in EPA SW-846 Method 8330

Dionex Corporation announces the addition of two new columns to the Acclaim® bonded silica family: the Acclaim Explosives E1 and E2 columns. These reversed-phase columns baseline resolve all 14 explosive compounds listed in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency SW-846 Method 8330, “Nitroaromatics and Nitramines by HPLC”. Compared with commercially available C18 columns, the unique bonding chemistry of the Acclaim Explosives E1 provides a superior primary analysis column while the Acclaim Explosives E2, with its complementary elution pattern, is a superior confirmatory column.

The highly toxic nature of explosive compounds, coupled with their persistence in the environment, has required thorough characterization of soils and waters from contaminated sites. More recently the demand to analyze and characterize explosives and their degradation products has increased for forensic purposes in response to terrorist activities.

The Acclaim Explosives E1 reversed-phase column provides baseline separation of all 14 explosives listed in EPA SW-846 Method 8330, with selectivity similar to other C18 columns designed for this application. To achieve the necessary selectivity, the Acclaim Explosives E1 column incorporates a proprietary surface chemistry that offers ideal selectivity and separations of the target explosive compounds. The Acclaim Explosives E2 column incorporates a unique bonding chemistry to provide baseline separation for the 14 explosives compounds, with selectivity that is complementary to Acclaim Explosives E1. Thus, the Acclaim Explosives E2 column can be used as a confirmatory column for explosives analysis, as required by Method 8330. The E2’s unique selectivity provides simultaneous separation of nitrate ester explosives such as PETN and EGDN, which is not possible using other commercially available columns.

The bonded silica materials for the Acclaim Explosives columns are manufactured to stringent specifications to ensure column-to-column reproducibility. The Acclaim Explosives columns are available in a 5-mm particle size, packed in a 4.6 x 250 mm column format.

Dionex (NASDAQ:DNEX) is a leading developer and provider of chromatography systems, consumables, and software. The company's systems are used in pharmaceutical analysis and by the life sciences, chemical, petrochemical, environmental, power generation, and electronics industries in a variety of applications. Dionex products are designed, developed, and manufactured under an NSAI registered ISO 9001 quality system.

Additional information is available at the company's website, www.dionex.com.