Polar solutes, retention

Molecular interactions are the result of intermolecular forces which are all electrical in nature. It is possible that other forces may be present, such as gravitational and magnetic forces, but these are many orders of magnitude weaker than the electrical forces and play little or no part in solute retention. It must be emphasized that there are three, and only three, different basic types of intermolecular forces, dispersion forces, polar forces and ionic forces. All molecular interactions must be composites of these three basic molecular forces although, individually, they can vary widely in strength. In some instances, different terms have been introduced to describe one particular force which is based not on the type of force but on the strength of the force. Fundamentally, however, there are only three basic types of molecular force. 

This is one approach to the explanation of retention by polar interactions, but the subject, at this time, remains controversial. Doubtless, complexation can take place, and probably does so in cases like olefin retention on silver nitrate doped stationary phases in GC. However, if dispersive interactions (electrical interactions between randomly generated dipoles) can cause solute retention without the need to invoke the... 

From the point of view of solute interaction with the structure of the surface, it is now very complex indeed. In contrast to the less polar or dispersive solvents, the character of the interactive surface will be modified dramatically as the concentration of the polar solvent ranges from 0 to l%w/v. However, above l%w/v, the surface will be modified more subtly, allowing a more controlled adjustment of the interactive nature of the surface It would appear that multi-layer adsorption would also be feasible. For example, the second layer of ethyl acetate might have an absorbed layer of the dispersive solvent n-heptane on it. However, any subsequent solvent layers that may be generated will be situated further and further from the silica surface and are likely to be very weakly held and sparse in nature. Under such circumstances their presence, if in fact real, may have little impact on solute retention. 

The effect of temperature, although significant, is not nearly as great as that from the ethanol content and is greatest at low concentrations of the polar solvent. It is clear, that the solute retention is the least at high ethanol concentrations and high temperatures, which would provide shorter analysis times providing the selectivity of the phase system was not impaired. The combined effect of temperature and solvent composition on selectivity, however, is more complicated and to some extent... 

The results from the overload of the more polar solute are similar to that for the aromatic hydrocarbons, but the effect of the overloaded peak on the other two appears to be somewhat less. It is seen that there is little change in the retention of anisole and acetophenone, although the band width of acetophenone shows a slight increase. The band width of benzyl acetate shows the expected band broadening... 

Normal-phase LC tends to separate according to solute polarity since the stationary phase is polar and retention is often dominated by hydrogen bonding. Thus, normal-phase LC is useful in sorting out classes of materials according to the polarity of the solutes. Fatty acids are easily separated from monoglycerides, but the separation of individual saturated fatty acids from each other on the basis of their carbon... 

It was explained in the previous chapter that solute retention and, consequently, solute selectivity is accomplished in an LC column by exploiting three basic and different types of molecular interactions in the stationary phase those interactions were described as ionic, polar and dispersive. 

This means, in practice, that when employing a polar solvent with n-heptane (or any other paraffin for that matter) to reduce the retention, there will be a dramatic reduction in retention over the concentration range of about 0-2%w/v. However, subsequent changes in solute retention with polar solvent concentration will be relatively small. This will be true for any polar solute and was experimentally verified by Scott and Kucera for solutions of ethyl acetate, tetrahydrofuran and n-propanol in n-heptane. The very sensitive relationship between solvent concentration and retention at very low concentrations makes the phase system very difficult to make reproducible. This problem is one of the factors that deter analysts from using silica gel as a stationary phase for the separation of polar solutes. It is very satisfactory, however, for the separation of polarizable and weakly polar substances that can be eluted by paraffin/methylene dichloride or similar types of solvent mixtures. 

As a result of its highly polar character, silica gel is particularly useful in the separation of polarizable materials such as the aromatic hydrocarbons and polynuclear aromatics. It is also useful in the separation of weakly polar solute mixtures such as ethers, esters and in some cases, ketones. The mobile phases that are commonly employed with silica gel are the n-paraffins and mixtures of the n-paraffins with methylene dichloride or chloroform. It should be borne in mind that chloroform is opaque to UV light at 254 nm and thus, if a fixed wavelength UV detector is being used, methylene dichloride might be a better choice. Furthermore, chloroform is considered toxic and requires special methods of waste disposal. Silica gel is strongly deactivated with water and thus, to ensure stable retentive characteristics, the solvent used for the mobile phase should either be completely dry or have a controlled amount of water present. The level of water in the solvent that will have significant effect on solute retention is extremely small. The solubility of water in n-heptane is... 

Interactive LC systems are those where solute retention is predominantly controlled by the relative strengths of the molecular interactions between solute molecules with those of the two phases. In such systems, exclusion and entropically driven interactions will be minor contributions to retention. The three basically different types of molecular interaction, dispersive, polar and ionic give rise to three subgroups, each subgroup representing a separation where one specific type of interaction dominates in the stationary phase and thus governs solute retention. The subgroups are as follows ... 

Consequences of the Snyder and Soczewinski model are manifold, and their praetieal importance is very signifieant. The most speetaeular conclusions of this model are (1) a possibility to quantify adsorbents ehromatographic activity and (2) a possibility to dehne and quantify chromatographic polarity of solvents (known as the solvents elution strength). These two conclusions could only be drawn on the assumption as to the displacement mechanism of solute retention. An obvious necessity was to quantify the effect of displacement, which resulted in the following relationship for the thermodynamic equilibrium constant of adsorption, K,, in the case of an active chromatographic adsorbent and of the monocomponent eluent ... 

Residual silanol groups in chemically bonded phases have been associated with a number of undesirable interactions with polar solutes such as excessive peak tailing, irreproducible retention times, and excessively long retention times. These problems are particularly prevalent for amines and other strong bases. A large number of test systems have been proposed to characterize the concentration of residual silanol groups on bonded phase packings, and some representative examples are... 

In addition to water, virtually any organic polar modifier may be used to control solute retention in liquid-solid chromatography. Alcohols, alkyl2aiines, acetonitrile, tetrahydrofuran and ethyl acetate in volumes of less than one percent can be incorporated into nonpolar mobile phases to control adsorbent activity. In general, column efficiency declines for alcohol-moderated eluents cogqpared to water-moderated eluent systems. Many of the problems discussed above for water-moderated eluents are true for organic-moderated eluents as well. 

The mechanism of reversed phase chromatography can be understood by contrast with normal phase chromatography. Normal phase liquid chromatography (NPLC) is usually performed on a polar silica stationary phase with a nonpolar mobile phase, while reversed phase chromatography is performed on a nonpolar stationary phase with a polar mobile phase. In RPLC, solute retention is mainly due to hydrophobic interactions between the solutes and the nonpolar hydrocarbon stationary surface. The nonpolar... 

The strength of the interaction between the adsorbent and the solute molecules increases as the polarity of the solute increases. Thus we can increase retention of our solute molecules (X) by decreasing the polarity of the mobile phase (S), which will shift the equilibrium above to the right. Polar solute molecules are strongly held on unmodified silica and tail badly, so the method is useful only for solutes having low or medium polarity. 

The presence of alcohol would increase the polarity of the mobile phase, so that solute retention times would be shortened. Also, we would not expect to get very good reproducibility, as the concentration of stabiliser will vary slightly from batch to batch. 

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