Extraction of organic acids by ion-pair formation with tri-n-octylamine : Part. 1. Extraction Rate and Influence of pH and Ionic Strength

The extraction scheme for dyes, developed previously, is applied to benzoic acid and its hydroxylated derivatives. Extractions are done with tri-n-octylamine at pH 5.5 and an ionic strength of 0.1 into chloroform. Equilibrium is attained in 20 min or less. The influences of pH and ionic strength of the extraction medium on the recoveries are described. The scheme developed for dyes is applicable for benzoic acid and salicyclic acid; for more polar acids the pH and ionic strength must be changed in order to maximize the recovery.     

Separation strategy for acidic chiral pharmaceuticals with capillary electrochromatography on polysaccharide stationary phases

The effect of five factors on the capillary electrochromatographic enantioseparation of acidic compounds was studied using an experimental design. The studied factors were pH, acetonitrile content in the mobile phase, temperature, buffer concentration, and applied voltage. These experiments allowed defining a generic separation strategy applicable on acidic compounds with chemical and structural diversity. The starting screening conditions consist of a 45 mM ammonium formate electrolyte at pH 2.9 mixed with 65% acetonitrile, an applied voltage of 15 kV, and a temperature of 25 degrees C. The screening phase occasionally can be followed by an optimization procedure. Evaluation of the proposed strategy pointed out that it allows achieving baseline resolution within a relatively short time when a beginning of separation is obtained at the starting conditions. This strategy revealed enantioselectivity for 11 compounds out of 15, of which 10 could be baseline-separated after the proposed optimization steps.     

Orthogonality and similarity within silica-based reversed-phased chromatographic systems

The starting point of this study was a current set of 32 chromatographic systems used to select initial conditions for method development to determine the impurity profile of a drug. The system exhibiting the best selectivity is then selected for further method development. In this current set eight silica-based phases are applied in conjunction with four mobile phases at different pH. In order to save time and resources, the possibilities for a meaningful subset selection were investigated. The most differing systems in terms of selectivity, in other words only the most orthogonal systems, need to be selected. Since the stationary phases are all silica-based, the selectivity differences are examined within a more homogeneous group than if, for instance, also zirconia- or polymer-based columns would be involved. To select the subset of systems also the best overall separation performances are taken into account. The selection is based both on the HPLC-DAD data of a generic set of 68 drugs, and on the LC-MS-DAD results for a mixture of 15 drugs, less different in structure. The orthogonality is evaluated using weighted-average-linkage dendrograms and color maps, both created from the Pearson-correlation coefficients r between normalized retention times r. The Derringer's desirability functions are applied to define the systems with the best overall separation performances. Proposals for different representative subsets of the initial 32 systems are made.     

Minimal number of chromatographic test parameters for the characterisation of reversed-phase liquid chromatographic stationary phases

This paper focuses on the classification or differentiation of RP-HPLC columns based on measured chromatographic properties. A chemometric study has been conducted on a published data set consisting of 85 RP-HPLC columns and on a data set consisting of 47 self-tested columns. Principal component analysis enables determination of the number of parameters necessary for a rational differentiation. The results show that reducing the number of parameters for such differentiation still allows classification of the columns just as a higher number did. It is shown that three test parameters produce a classification similar to that obtained with five parameters.     

Selection of reversed-phase liquid chromatographic columns with diverse selectivity towards the potential separation of impurities in drugs

To select appropriate stationary phases from the continuously expanding supply of potentially suitable HPLC columns, the properties of 28 frequently applied stationary phases were determined by measuring several chromatographic parameters. From these results, based on chromatographic expertise, eight stationary phases with different properties and selectivities were selected. The aim of this study is to apply chemometric tools to evaluate the initially selected set of columns, i.e. a more systematic approach for making such a selection is examined. Starting from the information obtained on the 28 stationary phases, the re-evaluation was performed independently based on the chemometric techniques Pareto-optimality, principal component analysis (PCA), and Derringer's desirability functions. The aim was to select a set of efficient columns exhibiting large selectivity differences. The chemometrically selected stationary phases were divided in groups based on hydrophobicity, a critical retention-determining property in reversed-phase chromatography. This allowed to further reducing the selection to three columns. It is demonstrated that the selection by the chemometric approaches in general is fairly comparable with the initial selection.     

Influence of peak measurement parameters on the quality of chiral electrophoretic separations

The effect of nine peak measurement/analysis parameters on chiral capillary electrophoresis (CE), followed by UV detection, was studied. The parameters pertained UV-detection (detection wavelength, reference wavelength, and wavelength bandwidths), signal processing (data acquisition rate, type and amount of filtering) and peak detection (detection threshold and peak width). The influence of these factors on the chiral separation of dimethindene enantiomers was studied at two different concentrations (i.e., at high and low signal-to-noise (S/N) ratio) by the means of experimental designs. The electropherogram characteristics considered were the resolution between the two enantiomers, the peak areas, and the S/N ratio. A D-optimal design was first used as screening design to identify the most critical parameters. Afterwards, a modelling of the different responses as a function of these critical parameters was performed based on the results of a face-centered central composite design. The results showed that the signal-processing parameters should be carefully selected when developing a CE separation since very important variations in the separation, the S/N ratio and the peak area of the substances can occur by setting these parameters at different levels. The detection wavelength should also be carefully chosen for optimal peak area measurement. The role of these parameters becomes more important with decreasing concentration of the analytes (i.e., low S/N ratio). This study showed that the peak measurement/analysis parameters should be optimized as the chemical and physical parameters of a method. They also should always be well specified in order to allow a good transfer of a method from one instrument to another.     

Application of neural network calibrations to an halide ISE array

The Neural Network (NN) technique was applied to the calibration of an ion selective electrode (ISE) array comprising a bromide selective electrode, two chloride ISEs and one thiocyanate ISE. The measured samples were synthetic mixture solutions of chlorides and bromides in concentration ranges such that interference occurs. The NN method allowed to perform the calibration without estimating the coefficients of the Nikolskii-Eisenman theoretical relation. Only the determination of bromide was detailed. The results obtained using this method were better than those obtained using linear multivariate calibration methods.