Investigation of the low temperature effect in reversed phase micro high performance liquid chromatography

The low temperature effect has been investigated in reversed phase micro high performance liquid chromatography with various aqueous mobile phase systems by an approach based on enthalpy-entropy compensation. The compensation temperatures, Tc , were determined for these systems, and the results show that the retention mechanism in a lower temperature column is similar to that in a normal temperature column in the reversed phase mode at mobile phase water contents above 9.8%. At lower water contents, the separation mechanism is different from that in the reversed phase mode, but otherwise very similar to that in the normal phase mode.     

The determination of serum retinol by high performance liquid chromatography

A method for the quantitation of retinol in serum by normal phase high performance liquid chromatography is described. The mobile phase consists of a hexane/diethylether/methanol mixture with spectrophotometric detection. The sample preparation is similar to that described by other authors and involves protein precipitation followed by extraction and direct injection onto the chromatograph. Adequate sensitivity is achieved using 200 μl samples. The internal standard chosen is α-naphthol because of its spectral similarities to retinol and its greater stability than the commonly used retinyl esters. The method has been successfully applied to the clinical evaluation of a number of malabsorption syndromes for which it is preferred to the measurement of total carotenoids.     

Multi micro high performance liquid chromatography

Summary The purpose of the study was to develop a micro HPLC system with physically changeable selectivity. This was done using two series-coupled beds of chemically differing stationary phases in a packed fused silica column. The selectivity change, in fine repeatable steps, was possible by the stepwise moving of a tube oven, covering only 50% of this tandem column. Each step of selectivity started with a position change of the oven, thus heating up a fresh position of the more polar and the non-polar column bed. As the chromatogram is thus repeated under these new selectivity conditions, multiple chromatograms result. For this reason we call the technique Multi Micro HPLC. This very simple mode of operation provides an analytical tool for developing separation conditions and which allows optimizing for a given special sample and checking for one of the most critical problems in HPLC: unidentified peak overlapping. The selectivity changes are nonlinearly correlated with the oven position with regards to temperature field distribution and are greater than is possible by simple change of column temperature. Micropacked columns are ideal for quick temperature changes. Elevated temperatures in HPLC help to shorten analysis time. The concepts discussed above provide an explanation of how a normal, formerly chemically homogeneous, column can become very temperature sensitive after detoriation at the inlet. In fact the column has become an unintentional tandem column and peak positions tend to move erratically as its selectivity changes drastically by inhomogeneous temperature changes along the separation path.     

Chromatographic performance of deuterated solvents in reversed phase micro high performance liquid chromatography

The chromatographic performance of the deuterated solvents, CD₃OD and D₂O, has been investigated in reversed-phase micro high performance liquid chromatography. The chromatographic performance of CD₃OD is only slightly superior to that of CH₃OH. However, the performance of D₂ is significantly superior to that of H₂O, separation of aromatics being improved by about 30%. D₂ is a particularly powerful solvent for the separation iof deuterated and non-deuterated compounds.     

Evaluation of a new polymeric stationary phase with reversed-phase properties for high temperature liquid chromatography

The performance of a polymeric stationary phase with reversed-phase properties (ET-RP1) was evaluated for LC separations at elevated temperature. The most significant observation was that the reduced plate height (h) decreased from 3.4 at 25 °C (optimal flow 0.5 mL/min) to 2.4 at 150 °C (optimal flow 2.5 mL/min) which is comparable to the efficiency obtained with silica-based reversed-phase columns of 4.6 mm ID operated at 0.8 mL/min. The phase showed no deterioration after long use at 150 °C within the pH range 1–9. Catalytic activity originating from the stationary phase material, e.g. as experienced on zirconium columns operated at elevated temperature, was absent. The performance of ET-RP1 is illustrated with the analysis of some pharmaceutical samples by LC and LC–MS. Operation at elevated temperature also allows to reduce the amount of organic modifier or to replace acetonitrile and methanol by the biodegradable ethanol.     

Extending the Total Pore Blocking method to normal phase high performance liquid chromatography

It has been demonstrated that it is possible to extend the Total Pore Blocking (TBP)-method for the determination of the external porosity (ε(e)) of packed bed columns from reversed-phase (RP) chromatography to normal-phase (NP) chromatography conditions by switching the nature of the blocking agent and the interstitial void flushing liquid, i.e., by using a hydrophilic blocking agent (pure or buffered water at pH 3.0 or pH 7.0) and a hydrophobic flushing liquid (linear alkanes such as decane). Several parameters that might influence the accuracy of the method, such as the applicable range of flow rates and the meso-pore size of the particles have been investigated. The influence of several different parameters on the obtained external porosity value has been investigated. From a wide selection of possible t(0)-markers, the class of linear alkanes has been shown to be the single possible one. This brings along the need to use refractive index detection to measure the signal of the linear alkane tracer (e.g., dodecane) in a stream of (another) linear alkane. The results of the newly established NP-TPB method have been compared to the values of the external porosity obtained by ISEC and proved to generate the same results, however with a much smaller read-out error (being only of the order of 0.1%).     

Group-type analysis of gasoline range materials by high performance liquid chromatography

Hydrocarbon group-type analysis of gasoline-range materials is a very important method for evaluating feedstocks and products in the petroleum industry. In this paper the method of group-type analysis of gasoline-range materials by high performance liquid chromatography is investigated. The results demonstrte that the separation of saturates and olefins can be accomplished with reactivated and cooled columns. The low-temperature columns and the use of n-hexane as an eluent play a particularly important role in the improvement of the separation.     

High temperature normal phase liquid chromatography of aromatic hydrocarbons on bare zirconia

The normal phase HPLC behavior of a bare zirconia column was studied at temperatures up to 200 °C using a hexane mobile phase. The use of elevated column temperatures significantly decreased the retention of twenty five aromatic model compounds according to the van't Hoff equation (>30-fold decrease for some compounds). Large improvements in peak shape, efficiency (>2.2-fold), aromatic group-type selectivity, and column re-equilibration times (>5-fold) were obtained at elevated temperatures. The thermal decomposition of two polar nitrogen compounds (indole and carbazole) was observed in a hexane/dichloromethane mobile phase at temperatures greater than 100 °C. The first order decomposition of carbazole was studied in further detail.     

Evaporation of the liquid stationary phase in gas chromatography

Summary The theory of the evaporation of the liquid stationary phase is elaborated and experimentally verified. On the basis of this theory the role played by the losses in the amount of liquid phase present is quantitatively determined. General techniques are examined which minimize the losses; these techniques are based on saturating the incoming carrier gas with liquid phase vapours and raising the pressure of the carrier gas in the column, e.g. by connecting a capillary to the column outlet in order to offer resistance to the gas flow. The application of these techniques ensures stable performance of the gas chromatographic columns using a volatile liquid phase.     

Immobilized metallacarborane as a new type of stationary phase for high performance liquid chromatography

A new type of high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) stationary phase was prepared, and its chromatographic properties were evaluated. The sorbent was composed of metallacarborane covalently bound to silica. Because of the chemical structure of the immobilized metallacarborane, the synthesized stationary phase was able to interact with nonpolar analytes via hydrophobic interactions. The chromatographic behavior of several low-molecular-weight hydrocarbons on the sorbent under typical reversed-phase conditions was compared with octadecyl-, sulfo phenyl- and aminopropyl-modified silica stationary phases. Moreover, as a consequence of the synthetic protocol employed, the immobilization of the metallacarborane led to the development of a zwitterionic chemically bonded phase, which demonstrated excellent resistance to "phase collapse" in a 100% aqueous environment. Finally, preliminary experiments indicated that the new stationary phase has the potential for utilization in hydrophilic interaction chromatography (HILIC) mode for the separation of polar compounds.     

Partition and adsorption in the separation of long chain lipids by normal phase high performance liquid chromatography

Martin's adaption of Raoult's Law has been shown to describe partition phenomena in normal phase HPLC. Thus, in the separation of fatty acid pentaflorobenzyl esters and of triacylglycerols in dichloromethane or acetonitrile in half-water-saturated hexane, the natural logarithm of the corrected retention volume is proportional to the number of double bonds that these solutes contain. By extending Martin's adaption of Raoult's Law with activity coefficients, evidence was obtained that deviations observed for the homologous series of saturated fatty acid pentafluorobenzyl esters from C₂ to C₅ could be accounted for by a diminution of adsorption by the inductive effect. For chain lengths longer than C₅, it appeared that there were additional field and inductive effects from the methyl end of the hydrocarbon chains. Thus, with these half-water-saturated solvent systems, the silica surface is probably covered with a bilayer of water which, in the dynamic situation in an HPLC column, attracts several layers of the polar organic component of the mobile phase by dispersive interactions. This stationary phase surface may, then, be considered to be immiscible with the predominantly hexane mobile phase due to these dispersive interactions and thus partition can occur between these two phases. Solutes that enter the stationary phase are then free to interact with the underlying aqueous phase by adsorption.     

Application of liquid phase deposited titania nanoparticles on silica spheres to phosphopeptide enrichment and high performance liquid chromatography packings

A novel core-shell composite (SiO(2)-nLPD), consisting of micrometer-sized silica spheres as a core and nanometer titania particles as a surface coating, was prepared by liquid phase deposition (LPD). Here, we show the resulting core-shell composite to have better efficient and selective enrichment for mono- and multi-phosphopeptides than commercially available TiO(2) spheres without any enhancer. The material exhibited favorable characteristics for HPLC, which include narrow pore size distribution, high surface area and pore volume. We also show that the core-shell composite can efficiently separate adenosine phosphate compounds due to the Lewis acid-base interaction between titania and phosphate group when used as HPLC packings. After coating the silica sphere with titania by LPD, the silanol of silica spheres will be shielded and that the stationary phase, C(18) bonded SiO(2)-3LPD, could be used under extreme pH condition.     

Determination of acrylamide and methacrylamide by normal phase high performance liquid chromatography and UV detection

A method using normal phase high performance liquid chromatography (NP-HPLC) with UV detection was developed for the analysis of acrylamide and methacrylamide. The method relies on the chromatographic separation of these analytes on a polar HPLC column designed for the separation of organic acids. Identification of acrylamide and methacrylamide is approached dually, that is directly in their protonated forms and as their hydrolysis products acrylic and methacrylic acid respectively, for confirmation. Detection and quantification is performed at 200 nm. The method is simple allowing for clear resolution of the target peaks from any interfering substances. Detection limits of 10 microg L(-1) were obtained for both analytes with the inter- and intra-day RSD for standard analysis lying below 1.0%. Use of acetonitrile in the elution solvent lowers detection limits and retention times, without impairing resolution of peaks. The method was applied for the determination of acrylamide and methacrylamide in spiked food samples without native acrylamide yielding recoveries between 95 and 103%. Finally, commercial samples of french and roasted fries, cookies, cocoa and coffee were analyzed to assess applicability of the method towards acrylamide, giving results similar with those reported in the literature.     

Influence of temperature and mobile phase composition on retention properties of oligomeric bonded phases in reversed-phase liquid chromatography (RPLC)

Summary The effect of temperature and mobile phase composition (methanol-water) on the retention behaviour of an oligomeric series of n-octylsilyl bonded phases in reversed-phase liquid chromatography has been investigated. Plots of lnk against 1/T (van't Hoff plot) and the enthalpy of transfer (ΔH^o) yields linear relationships under the conditions studied. The ΔH^o values of the aromatic hydrocarbons and n-alkyl benzoates are higher than those of the polar compounds due to their higher level of interaction with the stationary phase. A linear plot of ΔH^o vs. ΔS^o suggest that the retention process, which is essentially controlled by non-specific (dispersive) interactions between the solutes and the bonded ligands, is identical for all cases evaluated. The existence of similar retention mechanisms is confirmed by the constant value of the enthalpy-entropy compensation temperature of the columns for a given class of componds. As expected, decreasing the methanol content (% v/v) of the mobile phase results in increased eluite retention times. The methylene and phenyl selectivities are found to be independent of the carbon content of the stationary phases and varied only with the eluent composition. In addition to their high stability under aggressive mobile phase conditions as previously reported, the results of this study generally showed that the solute retention process on oligomeric phases are similar to those exhibited by the conventional reversed phases.