Determine the financial impact of switching from preparative HPLC to preparative SFC. This interactive calculator estimates potential savings from reduced solvent consumption, lower disposal costs, decreased dry-down time, and improved operational efficiency. Enter your current purification workflow parameters to see how SFC could affect your annual operating costs.

If you don’t have SFC operating parameters available, JASCO can help. Contact your local representative to discuss your application and obtain guidance on appropriate SFC inputs for comparison purposes.

Illustrative starting example

New to SFC? Start with the preloaded example.

The calculator is preloaded with a simple HPLC-to-SFC scenario so you can see how the ROI model responds. Replace the green fields with your actual campaign, method, solvent, disposal, and labor data for a customer-specific estimate.

Tip: change one input at a time to see what drives the result.

1. Customer and campaign assumptions

How to use this section: Enter the current HPLC workload and the proposed SFC method. Campaign frequency and SFC method time are major ROI drivers because most operating savings scale with annual usage.
optional
campaigns/year
min/campaign
mL/min
min/campaign
mL/min
%
mL/hr
$/hr
$/L
$
SFC investment: Enter the actual quoted or budgetary system cost to calculate simple payback. The payback calculation does not include financing, taxes, service contracts, maintenance, or other ownership costs unless they are incorporated separately.

2. Mobile Phase and CO₂ Cost Assumptions

Percentage entries: Enter solvent/modifier composition as a percentage of total flow (for example, enter 10 for 10%). CO₂ density factor: fixed at 1.013 kg/L for the assumed condition of −10 °C and 100 bar. This factor is used only to convert estimated CO₂ volumetric consumption to mass for the cost calculation. Actual CO₂ density varies with operating temperature and pressure.
$/kg
kg/L (fixed)
CO₂ density note: The model uses 1.013 kg/L for CO₂ at approximately −10 °C and 100 bar. This value is used only to convert estimated CO₂ volumetric consumption to mass for the annual CO₂ cost calculation. Actual density varies with temperature and pressure.

HPLC organic solvents

Solvent% of total HPLC flow$/L
Organic-solvent basis: Enter the organic components that should be included in purchase, disposal, and dry-down calculations. Aqueous mobile-phase components do not need to be counted as organic solvent.

SFC co-solvents/modifiers

Co-solvent% of total SFC flow$/L
Make-up solvent: This standard ROI model does not include a separate make-up-solvent field. It focuses on the primary SFC modifier and CO₂ costs. If make-up-solvent consumption is material for a specific configuration, JASCO can include it during the technical review.

ROI summary

Total annual savings
$124,415
Net solvent cost savings
$88,524
Solvent disposal savings
$11,334
Dry-down savings
$24,557
Annual CO₂ cost
$5,926
Organic solvent reduction
1,889 L
MetricHPLCSFCReduction
Organic solvent used per campaign (L)22.143.2518.89
Annual organic solvent used (L)2,2143251,889
Annual solvent purchase cost$110,700$16,250$94,450
Annual solvent disposal cost$13,284$1,950$11,334
Dry-down hours per campaign4.430.653.78
Annual CO₂ used (kg)-2,963-
Enter an optional SFC investment to calculate simple payback.The ROI estimate remains useful without an investment value because annual operating savings are calculated independently.

What improves the ROI?

Illustrative one-variable sensitivity checks based on the values currently entered. These are not performance guarantees.

20% more campaigns/year
+$24,883/yr
Higher annual utilization generally increases the value of recurring operating savings.
20% shorter SFC method
+$5,670/yr
Shorter SFC run time reduces modifier and CO₂ use while improving throughput.
20% less modifier
+$4,353/yr
Lower modifier demand can reduce solvent purchase, disposal, and dry-down burden.
JASCO SFC Systems Knowledge Base SFC Applications