Isocratic

For LC, temperature is not as important as in GC because volatility is not important. The columns are usually metal, and they are operated at or near ambient temperatures, so the temperature-controlled oven used for GC is unnecessary. An LC mobile phase is a solvent such as water, methanol, or acetonitrile, and, if only a single solvent is used for analysis, the chromatography is said to be isocratic. Alternatively, mixtures of solvents can be employed. In fact, chromatography may start with one single solvent or mixture of solvents and gradually change to a different mix of solvents as analysis proceeds (gradient elution). 

A high performance Hquid chromotography (hplc) method to determine citric acid and other organic acids has been developed (46). The method is an isocratic system using sulfuric acid to elute organic acids onto a specific hplc column. The method is sensitive for citric acid down to ppm levels and is capable of quantifying citric acid in clear aqueous systems. 

Two variations of the technique exists isocratic elution, when the mobile phase composition is kept constant, and gradient elution, when the mobile phase composition is varied during the separation. Isocratic elution is often the method of choice for analysis and in process apphcations when the retention characteristics of the solutes to be separated are similar and not dramaticallv sensitive to vei y small changes in operating conditions. Isocratic elution is also generally practical for systems where the equilibrium isotherm is linear or nearly hnear. In all cases, isocratic elution results in a dilution of the separated produces. 

Isocratic Elution In the simplest case, feed with concentration cf is apphed to the column for a time tp followed by the pure carrier fluid. Under trace conditions, for a hnear isotherm with external mass-transfer control, the linear driving force approximation or reaction kinetics (see Table 16-12), solution of Eq. (16-146) gives the following expression for the dimensionless solute concentration at the column outlet ... 

Table 16-14 gives exphcit expressions for chromatographic peak properties in isocratic elution and huear gradient elution for two cases. 

Band broadening is also affected by the gradient steepness. This effect is expressed in Table 16-14 by a band compression factor C, which is a fnuctiou of the gradient steepness and of equilibrium parameters. Since C < 1, gradient elution yields peaks that are sharper than those that would be obtained in isocratic elution at

[Pg.1536]

The acceptable separation of Am(III) and Cm(III) by countercurrent chromatography (CCC) was achieved using both isocratic elution, and a new approach to the creation of the reagent concentration gradient in the stationary phase [1]. This way allows reduce the experiment length. 

A liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) method that can quantitatively analyze urinar y normal and modified nucleosides in less than 30 min with a good resolution and sufficient sensitivity has been developed. Nineteen kinds of normal and modified nucleosides were determined in urine samples from 10 healthy persons and 18 breast cancer patients. Compounds were separ ated on a reverse phase Kromasil C18 column (2.1 mm I.D.) by isocratic elution mode using 20 mg/1 ammonium acetate - acetonitrile (97 3 % v/v) at 200 p.l/min. A higher sensitivity was obtained in positive atmospheric pressure chemical ionization mode APCI(-i-). 

The design procedure described above will, in theory, be applicable only to samples that are separated by isocratic development. Under gradient elution conditions the (k ) value of each solute is continually changing, together with the viscosity of the... 

In most situations the eluent composition is chosen to minimize the effects of hydrophobic interaction, but these secondary effects can be used to advantage. By careful selection of a salt and its concentration, specific selectivities for analytes can be achieved without the use of organic solvents. Therefore, many separations usually run by solvent gradient reversed-phase methods can be completed with a purely aqueous isocratic eluent (13,14). 

W. Markowski and K. L. Czapiriska, Computer simulation of the separation in one- and two-dimensional tliin-layer chromatography hy isocratic and stepwise gradient development ,/ Liq. Chromatogr. 18 1405-1427 (1995). 

For preparative or semipreparative-scale enantiomer separations, the enantiose-lectivity and column saturation capacity are the critical factors determining the throughput of pure enantiomer that can be achieved. The above-described MICSPs are stable, they can be reproducibly synthesized, and they exhibit high selectivities - all of which are attractive features for such applications. However, most MICSPs have only moderate saturation capacities, and isocratic elution leads to excessive peak tailing which precludes many preparative applications. Nevertheless, with the L-PA MICSP described above, mobile phases can be chosen leading to acceptable resolution, saturation capacities and relatively short elution times also in the isocratic mode (Fig. 6-6). 

On the other hand, the HIP value for ribonuclease was practically independent of the length of the polyether ligate. These stationary phases were also employed for the separation of oligophenylalanines containing up to 4 residues by isocratic elution with 0.5 mol/1 phosphate buffer, pH 6.3. The retention increments of the Phe residues did not depend on the ligate length, too, and were 0.82 and 0.89 for the stationary phases composed of PEOs (1500 and 4000, respectively). 

A method offering the possibility for the separation, identification, and determination of alkyl- and alkylphenol ether carboxylates, even in mixtures with other nonionic and amphoteric substances, is carried out by HPLC using a reverse phase RP18 column and a mixture of methanol, water, and acetonitrile with the addition of an ion-pairing reagent as mobile phase working under isocratic conditions [242]. 

---