AbstractSpherical porous silica beads, a new material manufactured by Péchiney‐Saint‐Gobain, has been studied as a packing material for gel permeation chromatography columns. By choosing an appropriate pore size distribution, supports of good selectivity have been obtained. Universal calibration curves have been determined by plotting retention volumes for various polymer standards [polystyrene, poly(vinyl chloride), and dextran] against the logarithm of the productMw[n]. The nature of the polymer and the solvent (tetrahydrofuran or water) does not appear to affect much the calibration curve for a given support. Column efficiency was evaluated by measuring zone spreading as a function of column length, flow rate, and average particle diameter. The experimental results show that reproducible, uniform, and inherently efficient columns of good selectivity can be prepared with silica beads of average diameter, larger than 100 μ. In view of the observed decrease of efficiency loss at higher flow rates and of the relatively low pressure drop, porous silica beads appear to be a promising packing material for high‐speed analytical gel permeation chromat