Quantitative structure-retention relationships for ionic and non-ionic compounds in biopartitioning micellar chromatography

Quantitative structure-retention relationships, QSRRs, represent a powerful tool in chromatography. The objectives of QSRR studies are to predict the chromatographic retention behaviour of solutes based on their structural properties, to elucidate retention mechanisms, to optimize the separation of complex mixtures or to prepare experimental designs. In this paper, using the retention factors of 151 structurally unrelated solutes that cover a wide range of hydrophobicity, molecular size, hydrogen bonding properties and ionization degrees obtained in biopartitioning micellar chromatography (BMC) at different Brij35 micellar concentrations, several multivariate QSRR models are tested. It is demonstrated that the chromatographic retention of any molecule in BMC, independently of its family, can be adequately described by its hydrophobicity (expressed as log P) and its anionic and cationic total molar charge (expressed as alpha(A) and alpha(B)).