Evaluation of methanol-water and acetonitrile-water binary mixtures as eluents for temperature-dependent inclusion chromatography.

In the present study the solubility of beta-cyclodextrin and 2-hydroxypropyl-beta-cyclodextrin at sub-zero and elevated temperatures (-10 and +30 degrees C) for a given composition of methanol/water and acetonitrile/water binary mixtures (Xs = 0.16) was studied. Moreover, the freezing temperature profiles of acetonitrile-based chromatographic mobile phases were measured, and the obtained results were compared with data available in the literature. Furthermore, the effect of the macrocycles concentration on the liquid-phase freezing points was determined. The low solubility of native beta-cyclodextrin in a methanol/water mixture at sub-zero temperature as well as the non-linear behavior of acetonitrile/water mixtures that were observed concerning the freezing point profile are discussed from a practical point of view.     

Fast separation and quantification of C60 and C70 fullerenes using thermostated micro thin-layer chromatography.

Thermostated micro planar chromatography was applied for systematic separation studies of C60 and C70 fullerenes using n-alkanes as mobile phases on TLC and HPTLC plates coated with polyamide, silica gel, aluminum oxide as well as two types of octadecylsilica (C18) sorbents. Retention data were collected at constant temperature at 20 degrees C (+/-0.05 degrees C) using an unsaturated chamber mode with an eluent, such as n-pentane, n-hexane and n-heptane. The separation results under both saturated and unsaturated chamber modes for selected mobile/stationary phases were also examined, and several parameters, including separation factor (alpha) and resolution (R(S)), were compared with data obtained with high-performance liquid chromatography conditions. Interestingly, C60/C70 fullerenes separation performed on HPTLC plates with a developing distance of 45 mm was better for those observed on a 25 cm length analytical HPLC column under similar conditions to that on carbon coverage of the stationary phase, n-hexane as the mobile phase and separation temperature (R(S) = 1.84 and 1.68 for HPTLC, and HPLC, respectively). Moreover the advantage of the planar chromatographic separation of fullerenes studied is a short elution time of less than 6 min. Furthermore, the reported separation protocol shows a capability for the evaluation of fullerenes quantity in commercial samples.     

Retention behavior of ginsenosides on a poly(vinyl alcohol)-bonded stationary phase in hydrophilic interaction chromatography

The influences of the organic component of the mobile phase and the column temperature on the retention of ginsenosides on a poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) bonded stationary phase operated under hydrophilic interaction chromatographic mode were investigated. The retention of the ginsenosides was found to increase with increasing amount of acetonitrile (MeCN) in the mobile phase, which is typical of hydrophilic interaction chromatographic behavior. It was also found that the retention of the analytes was highly affected by the type of the organic modifier used. Aqueous MeCN (75–90%) gave the most satisfactory retention and separation of ginsenosides Rf, Rg1, Rd, Re, Rc, Rb2 and Rb1 compared with aqueous methanol, isopropyl alcohol or tetrahydrofuran at the same composition levels. The effects of the different types of organic modifiers on the retention of the analytes were attributed to their solvent strength and hydrogen-bond accepting/donating properties. The effect of temperature on the retention of ginsenoside on the PVA-bonded phase was assessed by constructing van’t Hoff plots for two temperature ranges: subambient (273–293 K) and ambient-elevated (298–333 K) temperatures. van’t Hoff plots for all analytes were linear at the two temperature intervals; however, the slopes of the lines corresponding to ginsenosides Rg1 and Re were completely different from those for the rest of the analytes especially in the subambient temperature range. Enthalpy-entropy compensation (EEC) studies were conducted to verify the difference in thermodynamics observed for ginsenosides Rg1 and Re compared with the other analytes. EEC plots showed that Rf, Rd, Rc, Rb2 and Rb1 were possibly retained by the same retention mechanism, which was completely different from that of Rg1 and Re at subambient temperatures. Retention prediction models were derived using multiple linear regression to identify solute attributes that affected the retention of the analytes on the PVA-bonded phase. The mathematical models derived revealed that the number of hydrogen-bond donors and the ovality of the molecules are important molecular properties that govern the retention of the compounds on the chromatographic system.     

Fiber-packed needle for dynamic extraction of aromatic compounds

A fiber-packed needle was developed as a novel extraction device for gas-chromatographic analysis of trace organic compounds in aqueous samples. In the extraction device, a bundle of the polymer-coated filaments as the sorbent material was longitudinally packed into a specially designed needle. The extraction was made by pumping the aqueous sample solution into the needle extraction device, and the subsequent desorption process was carried out with a flow of desorption solvent through the needle in a heated gas chromatograph injector. The needle device showed an excellent thermal stability for repeated use without any deterioration of extraction performance, and no carryover effect was observed after the optimization of the desorption conditions. Additionally, the extraction efficiency of the fiber-packed needle could be enhanced by optimizing the number of packed filaments. The selectivity for various compounds could be also tuned using an appropriate combination of the fibrous medium and the coating polymer. The relative standard deviation for run to run was from 3.88 to 4.55% (n = 5), and that for needle to needle was 7.21% (n = 3), clearly suggesting a good repeatability of the needle extraction technique developed. Upon successful optimization of the extraction conditions, a rapid extraction of trace organic compounds from an aqueous sample matrix was successfully demonstrated, where each extraction process was completed within 10 min.     

Simultaneous enantioseparation and sensitivity enhancement of basic drugs using large-volume sample stacking

Simultaneous enantioseparation with sensitive detection of four basic drugs, namely methoxamine, metaproterenol, terbutaline and carvedilol, using a 20-mum ID capillary with native beta-CD as the chiral selector was demonstrated by the large-volume sample stacking method. The procedure included conventional sample loading either hydrodynamically or electrokinetically at longer injection times without polarity switching and EOF manipulation. In comparison to conventional injections, depending on the analyte, about several hundred- and a thousand-fold sensitivity enhancement was achieved with the hydrodynamic and the electrokinetic injections, respectively. The simple method developed was applied to the analysis of racemic analytes in serum samples and better recovery was achieved using hydrodynamic injection than electrokinetic injection.     

Molecular-dynamics simulation for liquid chromatographic interactions: effect of mobile phase composition.

A molecular-dynamics simulation method has been applied to investigate the influence of the mobile-phase composition on the retention of solutes in HPLC. The distribution profiles of the distance between two atoms in ODS ligands were constructed to characterize the conformation of ODS ligand molecules. The distinct difference of ODS conformation is observed by comparing molecular models consisting of solvent molecules at each solvent composition. The distribution profiles of the distance between the mobile-phase solvent molecules and ODS ligand molecules were also constructed to characterize the distribution of the solvent molecules at each composition. In all distribution profiles, the difference in the distribution due to a change in the solvent compositions was very clearly found, and the facts seem to be very reasonable. The distribution profiles of the distance between the solute, n-propylbenzene, and the terminal carbon atom in the ODS ligand, and between the solute and the silicon atom in the ODS ligand have been also constructed to see the distribution of the solutes in the separation system. The calculated solute distribution in the ODS-methanol/water system is very consistent with the actual chromatographic retention behaviors.     

Characterization of the microscopic surface structure of the octadecylsilica stationary phase using a molecular-dynamics simulation.

The influence of the mobile-phase composition and temperature on the surface structure of the octadecylsilica (ODS) stationary-phase was investigated by applying a molecular-dynamics (MD) simulation. The molecular model to which the MD simulation was applied consisted of three parts: an amorphous silica base, dimethyloctadecylsilyl ligands and mobile-phase solvents. More detailed information on the effect of the mobile-phase composition was obtained by constructing larger molecular models than those used in our previous study. The thickness of the hydrocarbon layer of the stationary phase could be estimated based on the distance between the carbon atom located at the terminal end of the ODS ligand and the silica gel surface. The structural information obtained by the calculation showed good consistency with the experimentally observed values. The gauche fraction in the ODS ligand conformation could be also estimated to obtain a more detailed ligand conformation for each molecular model. It was found that as the temperature increased, the ligand conformation collapsed more. This trend was the same as the experimentally observed trends obtained by NMR, FT-IR, and Raman spectroscopic techniques.     

Determination of void/dead volume of liquid chromatographic columns containing β-cyclodextrin as the stationary phase. Part II. A new graphical method

Summary A new graphical method is proposed for the determination of the dead/void volume of liquid chromatographic columns with -cyclodextrin stationary phase. Two different approaches are presented which lead to very similar dead volume values for the cyclodextrin columns. The validity of the proposed method is discussed on the basis of column porosity values, as well as the resulting linear relationship between the logarithm of the capacity factor and the number of carbon atoms in the n-alkanol homologs. The method was applied to study the influence of various experimental parameters on the dead volume of cyclodextrin columns.