Influence of the degree of coverage of C18-bonded stationary phases on the mass transfer mechanism and its kinetics

The influence of the degree of coverage of a silica surface with bonded C18 alkyl chains on the mass transfer mechanism in RPLC was investigated. Five packing materials were used, prepared with the same batch of silica particles (5 microm diameter, 90 A average pore size): one column was packed with the silica derivatized by trimethylchlorosilane (TMS) (C1, 3.92 micromol/m2), and the other four with the silica first derivatized with octadecyl-dimethyl-chlorosilane (C18, 0.42, 1.01, 2.03, and 3.15 micromol/m2), and then endcapped with TMS. A solution of methanol and water (25/75, v/v) was used as the mobile phase. The experimental HETP curves were acquired for each column by measuring the first moment and the second central moment of phenol and correcting them for the influence of the temperature increase due to the heat generated by the friction of the stream against the bed. The different kinetic parameters of the mass transfer in these packed chromatographic columns were identified (longitudinal diffusion, eddy diffusion, film mass transfer, and transparticle mass transfer) and quantified by fitting the experimental data to a new general HETP equation recently derived F. Gritti, G. Guiochon, Anal. Chem., in press (AC-060203R).]. The agreement was excellent and allowed the comparison of the kinetic parameters among the six columns used. The highest column efficiency measured at conventional or fast flow rates (>0.5 ml/min) is obtained for the most retentive column, which has a surface coverage of 2.03 micromol/m2. The smallest HETP measured is as low as 10 microm, only twice the average particle diameter dp, due to the large contribution of surface diffusion (90%) to the particle effective diffusivity. However, no significant difference was observed between the efficiencies of the columns packed with C1 and C18 derivatized silica.