Waters Corporation has introduced next-generation 1 mm I.D. liquid chromatography (LC) columns featuring MaxPeak™ Premier Technology across its ACQUITY™, BioResolve™, and GTxResolve™ brands. Designed for high-throughput pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical laboratories, the new microflow columns are engineered to improve sensitivity while reducing both sample and solvent consumption.
According to the company, the columns deliver up to 2× higher sensitivity than stainless steel microflow columns, helping lower detection and quantitation limits across bioseparations, DMPK, and omics applications. At the same time, they use up to 75% less sample and up to 4× less solvent compared to traditional 2.1 mm I.D. columns.
Higher Sensitivity with Lower Sample and Solvent Consumption
For lab managers balancing performance, sustainability, and cost control, the new microflow format offers measurable advantages. By transitioning from 2.1 mm I.D. analytical-scale LC columns to 1 mm I.D. microflow columns, laboratories can achieve equivalent or improved sensitivity while using only one-quarter of the solvent and sample required for analytical flow.
Key benefits include:
- Up to 2× higher sensitivity than stainless steel microflow columns
- Up to 75% less sample usage compared to 2.1 mm I.D. columns
- Up to 4× reduction in solvent consumption
- Sharper peaks and enhanced peak capacity at low flow rates
- Reduced peak tailing and highly reproducible performance from the first injection
These efficiencies can help laboratories conserve precious materials—particularly in cell and gene therapy and personalized medicine research—while also supporting sustainability initiatives and reducing operating costs.
MaxPeak HPS Technology Improves Recovery and Reproducibility
The 1 mm I.D. columns apply Waters' MaxPeak High Performance Surface (HPS) Technology to a microflow format. This surface technology minimizes nonspecific adsorption (NSA) and improves analyte recovery for small molecules, peptides, and oligonucleotides. It is particularly beneficial for challenging analytes such as phosphorylated peptides, where recovery and reproducibility can be limiting factors.
"Waters continues to invest in the advancement of breakthrough technologies to remove common obstacles for our customers in high-throughput pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical laboratories, accelerating and simplifying the development of life-changing therapies," said Rob Carpio, Senior Vice President, Waters Analytical Sciences, Waters Corporation. "We know that in disciplines such as cell and gene therapy and personalized cancer medicines, sample availability is limited and analyte recovery is critical. Today, we are proud to introduce our new microflow LC columns with MaxPeak Premier Technology that protect these precious assets, while raising the bar on sensitivity, data quality, and reproducibility."
By reducing nonspecific adsorption, the columns also significantly decrease the time and variability associated with column passivation in traditional stainless steel designs—an operational improvement that can streamline workflows in busy, high-throughput labs.
Researchers are already seeing performance gains. "We saw a strong benefit matching, or even exceeding, our analytical sensitivity requirements when switching from 2.1 mm I.D. stainless steel columns to Waters' MaxPeak Premier Technology columns. It's great to have MaxPeak Technology now available in 1 mm I.D. microflow columns. They'll give our metabolomics team the opportunity to save solvent while delivering reproducible, fast, and highly accurate results in high-throughput operations," said Oliver Fiehn, Ph.D., Professor, University of California, Davis.
The new 1 mm I.D. columns with Waters' MaxPeak Premier Technology are available globally beginning February 17, 2026, with immediate shipment.
