Waters Launches Microflow LC Columns with MaxPeak Premier Technology for Higher Sensitivity and Lower Resource Consumption

Waters has introduced 1 mm I.D. microflow liquid chromatography (LC) columns featuring MaxPeak™ Premier Technology across its ACQUITY™, BioResolve™, and GTxResolve™ column families. Designed for laboratories balancing sensitivity, throughput, and sustainability, the new columns deliver up to 2× higher sensitivity compared to conventional stainless steel microflow columns while reducing both sample and solvent consumption.

For bioanalysis, DMPK, and high-throughput ‘omics workflows—where sample mass is often limiting—the 1 mm I.D. format provides measurable gains in detection and quantitation performance without increasing system complexity.

Performance Gains in Microflow Format

Transitioning from traditional 2.1 mm I.D. analytical-scale columns to the new 1 mm I.D. microflow format enable:

• Up to 75% reduction in sample usage, preserving limited or high-value materials such as cell and gene therapy candidates and personalized oncology samples
• Up to 4× reduction in solvent consumption, lowering operational costs and supporting laboratory sustainability targets
• Equivalent or improved analytical sensitivity relative to analytical-flow separations

These gains are particularly relevant for metabolomics, proteomics, lipidomics, and advanced biopharmaceutical characterization, where deeper profiling is often constrained by sample availability.

Surface Chemistry Designed to Minimize Adsorptive Losses

The columns incorporate Waters’ MaxPeak High Performance Surface (HPS) Technology in a 1 mm I.D. configuration. By minimizing nonspecific adsorption (NSA), the platform improves recovery for adsorption-prone analytes including:

• Acidic small molecules
• Phosphorylated peptides
• Oligonucleotides

For laboratories working with labile or low-abundance species, reduced analyte loss translates directly into improved reproducibility and lower limits of detection.

In addition to improved recovery, users can expect:

• Sharper peak shapes
• Increased peak capacity
• Reduced peak tailing at low flow rates
• Reproducible performance from the first injection

The latter significantly reduces time spent on column passivation commonly required with stainless steel hardware, helping laboratories move more quickly from installation to validated method performance.

Designed for High-Throughput Pharmaceutical and Biopharma Labs

High-throughput pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical laboratories face increasing pressure to deliver deeper molecular insight using smaller sample volumes and reduced solvent budgets. The 1 mm I.D. microflow columns address this by combining improved sensitivity with resource efficiency—without requiring a full redesign of established LC-MS workflows.