Chemically bonded retention mechanism

Buszewski, B., Gadza-la-Kopciuch, R. M., Markuszewski, M. L, Kaliszan, R. Chemically bonded silica stationary phases synthesis, physicochemical characterization, and molecular mechanism of reversed-phase HPLC retention. Anal. Chem. 1997, 69, 3277-3284. 

Selection of columns and mobile phases is determined after consideration of the chemistry of the analytes. In HPLC, the mobile phase is a liquid, while the stationary phase can be a solid or a liquid immobilised on a solid. A stationary phase may have chemical functional groups or compounds physically or chemically bonded to its surface. Resolution and efficiency of HPLC are closely associated with the active surface area of the materials used as stationary phase. Generally, the efficiency of a column increases with decreasing particle size, but back-pressure and mobile phase viscosity increase simultaneously. Selection of the stationary phase material is generally not difficult when the retention mechanism of the intended separation is understood. The fundamental behaviour of stationary phase materials is related to their solubility-interaction... 

Several improved stationary phase materials have been synthesized for reversed-phase liquid chromatography. One material is vinyl alcohol copolymer gel. This stationary phase is quite polar and chemically very stable however, it demonstrated a strong retention capacity for polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons.45 9 Although stable octadecyl- and octyl-bonded silica gels have been synthesized from pure silica gel50,51 and are now commercially available, such an optimization system has not yet been built. Further experiments are required to elucidate the retention mechanism, and to systematize it within the context of instrumentation. 

Berendsen, GE. and de Galan, L., Role of the chain length of chemically bonded phases and the retention mechanism in reversed-phase liquid chromatography, J. Chromatogr., 196, 21, 1980. 

Two main theories, the so-called solvophobic and partitioning theories, have been developed to explain the separation mechanism on chemically bonded, non-polar phases, as illustrated in Figure 2.4. In the solvophobic theory the stationary phase is thought to behave more like a solid than a liquid, and retention is considered to be related primarily to hydrophobic interactions between the solutes and the mobile phase14-16 (solvophobic effects). Because of the solvophobic effects, the solute binds to the surface of the stationary phase, thereby reducing the surface area of analyte exposed to the mobile phase. Adsorption increases as the surface tension of the mobile phase increases.17 Hence, solutes are retained more as a result... 

The mechanism of retention on chiral phases that is based on multiple hydrogen bonding formation involves the formation of base pairs and triple hydrogen bonds between the solutes and the chiral stationary phase 95 Fundamental work in this area has been done by Hara and Dobashi,96 97 using amino acid amide and tartaric acid amide phases. In addition, N,N -2,6-pyridinediyl bis(alkanamides) chemically bonded to silica gel have been described for the resolution of barbiturates 95... 

Bonded stationary phases for NPC are becoming increasingly popular in recent years owing to their virtues of faster column equilibration and being less prone to contamination by water. The use of iso-hydric (same water concentration) solvents is not needed to obtain reproducible results. However, predicting solute retention on bonded stationary phases is more difficult than when silica is used. This is largely because of the complexity of associations possible between solvent molecules and the chemically and physically heterogeneous bonded phase surface. Several models of retention on bonded phases have been advocated, but their validity, particularly when mixed solvent systems are used as mobile phase, can be questioned. The most commonly accepted retention mechanism is Snyder s model, which assumes the competitive adsorption between solutes and solvent molecules on active sites... 

The strong dependence of the isotherm parameters on the composition of the mobile phase conJfirms that adsorption of small molecules on chemically bonded Cis silica is more complex than is usually beUeved. Most prior work has been based on data acquired under linear conditions, that is, at infinite dilution. Chro-matographers have long ignored the way in which consideration of the whole equilibrium isotherm and its modeling may inform on the detail of the retention mechanisms involved [131]. 

A computational chemical analysis using the MM2 program was applied to analyze the retention mechanism of benzoic acid on the guanidine phases. The methyl-bonded phase was used as the blank phase to measure... 

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