Tools for work-up and prepurification of tritium-labeled small molecules.

This practitioner protocol describes the use and application of different types of solid-phase extractions and metal scavengers for small-scale reactions, particularly in the context of purifying tritiated molecules from heavily contaminated reaction mixtures. Polymer-bound strong cation exchangers are especially suitable for separating basic compounds from neutral or acidic molecules and have been widely applied in the work-up of iridium-based hydrogen isotope exchange reactions. Polymer-bound strong anion exchangers can help to separate acidic compounds from their neutral or basic counterparts or to easily convert a trifluoroacetate or formate salt to its free base after HPLC purification. Metal scavengers have been used for the work-up of metal-catalyzed coupling reactions and hydrogen isotope exchange reactions, facilitating subsequent chromatographic purifications.