Small-Molecule Retention

Mobile Phase Solvent Effects and Small Molecule Retention Mechanisms. 188... 

Feed—constituent interactions further affect retention (28,29). Dispersing agents and emulsifiers are partially retained because they attach to the dispersed phase. Small molecules may similarly adsorb onto larger particles. 

The thermodynamic dead volume would be that of a small molecule that could enter the pores but not be retained by differential interactive forces. The maximum retention volume was recorded for methanol and water which, for concentrations of methanol above 10%v/v, would be equivalent to the thermodynamic dead volume for small molecules viz, about 2.8 ml). It is interesting to note that there is no significant difference between the retention volume of water and that of methanol over the complete range of solvent compositions examined, which confirms the validity of this... 

As known, SEC separates molecules and particles according to their hydro-dynamic volume in solution. In an ideal case, the SEC separation is based solely on entropy changes and is not accompanied with any enthalpic processes. In real systems, however, enthalpic interactions among components of the chromatographic system often play a nonnegligible role and affect the corresponding retention volumes (Vr) of samples. This is clearly evident from the elution behavior of small molecules, which depends rather strongly on their chemical nature and on the properties of eluent used. This is the case even for... 

Flow markers are often chosen to be chemically pure small molecules that can fully permeate the GPC packing and elute as a sharp peak at the total permeation volume (Vp) of the column. Examples of a few common flow markers reported in the literature for nonaqueous GPC include xylene, dioctyl phthalate, ethylbenzene, and sulfur. The flow marker must in no way perturb the chromatography of the analyte, either by coeluting with the analyte peak of interest or by influencing the retention of the analyte. In all cases it is essential that the flow marker experience no adsorption on the stationary phase of the column. The variability that occurs in a flow marker when it experiences differences in how it adsorbs to a column is more than sufficient to obscure the flow rate deviations that one is trying to monitor and correct for. 

It is likely that small molecules such as short oligopeptides have almost equal access to the hydrocarbonaceous sublayer at the surface of the bonded phases and thus their retention behavior is not affected significantly by the size of the hydrophilic polyether moieties. 

The two examples of sample preparation for the analysis of trace material in liquid matrixes are typical of those met in the analytical laboratory. They are dealt with in two quite different ways one uses the now well established cartridge extraction technique which is the most common the other uses a unique type of stationary phase which separates simultaneously on two different principles. Firstly, due to its design it can exclude large molecules from the interacting surface secondly, small molecules that can penetrate to the retentive surface can be separated by dispersive interactions. The two examples given will be the determination of trimethoprim in blood serum and the determination of herbicides in pond water. 

Molecular sieves (zeolites) are artificially prepared aluminosilicates of alXali metals. The most common types for gas chromatography are molecular sieve 5A, a calcium aluminosilicate with an effective pore diameter of 0.5 nm, and molecular sieve 13X, a sodium aluminosilicate with an effective pore diameter of 1 nm. The molecular sieves have a tunnel-liXe pore structure with the pore size being dependent on the geometrical structure of the zeolite and the size of the cation. The pores are essentially microporous as the cross-sectional diameter of the channels is of similar dimensions to those of small molecules. This also contrilsutes to the enormous surface area of these materials. Two features primarily govern retention on molecular sieves. The size of the analyte idiich determines whether it can enter the porous... 

In its simplest form the competition model assumes the entire adsorbent surface is covered by a monolayer of solute and mobile phase molecules. Under normal chromatographic conditions, the concentration of sample molecules will be small and the adsorbed monolayer will consist mainly of mobile phase molecules. Retention of a solute molecule occurs by displacing a roughly equivalent volume of mobile phase molecules from the monolayer to make the surface accessible to the adsorbed solute aiolecule. For elution of the solute to occur -the above process must be reversible, and can be represented by the equilibrium depicted by equation (4.6)... 

In exclusion chromatography, the total volume of mobile phase in the column is the sum of the volume external to the stationary phase particles (the void volume, V0) and the volume within the pores of the particles (the interstitial volume, Vj). Large molecules that are excluded from the pores must have a retention volume VQ, small molecules that can completely permeate the porous network will have a retention volume of (Vo + Fj). Molecules of intermediate size that can enter some, but not all of the pore space will have a retention volume between VQ and (V0 + Fj). Provided that exclusion is the only separation mechanism (ie no adsorption, partition or ion-exchange), the entire sample must elute between these two volume limits. 

When retention ordering can be established, the theoretical peak capacity could be effectively utilized in a multidimensional separation system in a far more efficient manner. However, one is reminded that with the exception of synthetic polymers and a few other special cases of small molecules, real samples have almost random retention time distributions. It is rare when the free energy, enthalpy, and entropy of interaction are determined in LC for molecules utilized in retention mechanism studies. However, the retention energetics have been determined in GC studies by Davis et al. (2000) who found that many complex samples will exhibit Poisson distributions of retention times due to a Poisson distribution in enthalpy and a compensating distribution in entropy. 

Varian (see Catalog, SPE products) Bond Elut Plexa Highly cross-linked polymer with hydroxylated surface Hydrophobic retention of small molecules and hydrophilic exclusion of proteins See catalog... 

Theoretically, chromatographic resolution depends on the square root of the column length. Separation of small molecules may be improved 40% by doubling column length. Retention time may also... 

Nonideal interactions can be also be characterized using small-molecule probes.7 Ideally, these probes should elute at Vu. Cation-exchange interactions can be detected by excessive retention of arginine or lysine.8 Ion-exclusion effects can be characterized by early elution of citrate or glutamic acid. Hydrophobic interactions can be detected by late elution of phenylethyl alcohol or benzyl alcohol.8... 

Additional modes of HPTC include normal phase, where the stationary phase is relatively polar and the mobile phase is relatively nonpolar. Silica, diol, cyano, or amino bonded phases are typically used as the stationary phase and hexane (weak solvent) in combination with ethyl acetate, propanol, or butanol (strong solvent) as the mobile phase. The retention and separation of solutes are achieved through adsorp-tion/desorption. Normal phase systems usually show better selectivity for positional isomers and can provide orthogonal selectivity compared with classical RPLC. Hydrophilic interaction chromatography (HILIC), first reported by Alpert in 1990, is potentially another viable approach for developing separations that are orthogonal to RPLC. In the HILIC mode, an aqueous-organic mobile phase is used with a polar stationary phase to provide normal phase retention behavior. Typical stationary phases include silica, diol, or amino phases. Diluted acid or a buffer usually is needed in the mobile phase to control the pH and ensure the reproducibility of retention times. The use of HILIC is currently limited to the separation of very polar small molecules. Examples of applications... 

We have recently reported (1 )) the use of this technique for characterization of various compounds. Experimental data obtained for a number of compounds are shown in Figure 2. We calculated the "size factors" for a number of small molecules and oligomers. This factor is a measure of the deviation of the elution volume of a given species from the calibration curve for n-alkanes which is assigned a size factor of 1. This size factor, F, is defined to be equal to A/M, where M is the molecular weight of the compound and A is the molecular weight of a real or hypothetical n-alkane which will elute at the same retention volume as the compound. Size factors for a number of... 

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