Scientific achievements of Jack Kirkland to the development of HPLC and in particular to HPLC silica packings—a personal perspective

Joseph (Jack) Kirkland is one of the outstanding protagonists of modern column liquid chromatography (HPLC). He started in 1953 as an analytical chemist at the Experimental Station of Du Pont de Nemours & Co, Wilmington, Delaware, analyzing pesticides by gas chromatography (GC). He early recognized the potential of HPLC as a powerful separation technique at the end of 1960. His major contributions to HPLC were in the field of silica based packings and stationary phases. At the beginning of the 1970’s he manufactured Porous Layer Beads and later microparticulate porous silicas based at the Zorbax technology. He made outstanding contributions in the field of instrument design for HPLC and in the field of Sedimentation Field Flow Fractionation (SFFF), in HPLC method development and optimization strategies. In 1992 Jack resigned from Du Pont de Nemours & Co, Wilmington, Delaware, and joined Rockland Technologies, Newport, Delaware, as a Director of Research and Development. During this period he successfully developed a series of novel, designed reversed phase silicas. He resigned from Rockland technologies, now Agilent Technologies, Newport, Delaware, in 2001, but always remained dedicated to HPLC.