Retention characteristics of octadecylsilyl silica,trimethylsilyl silica and phenyldimethylsilyl silica in reversed-phase liquid chromatography

Summary The hydrophobic retention characteristics of stationary ligands for reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography have been evaluated from the slope (r-value) of the plots relating the capacity factors (log k) of selected aliphatic and aromatic compounds with the reciprocal of methanol concentration (log (1/MeOH])) in aqueous mobile phase. Octadecylsilyl (ODS), trimethylsilyl (TMS) and phenyldimethylsilyl (phenyl) groups were selected as the stationary ligands bonded to silica support.On ODS or TMS silicas, unlike on phenyl silica, aliphatic compounds gave slightly larger r-values than aromatic compounds, indicating that the shape of the ligand recognizes the hydrophobic surfaces of aliphatic and aromatic solute molecules. On TMS and phenyl silicas, the degree of solute hydrophobicity contributing to its retention is about 90% and 85% of that on ODS silica, respectively. On the other hand, on TMS and phenyl silicas, the polar functional group on the solute molecule brought about a smaller decrease in retention than on ODS silica.