Retention and Thermodynamic Studies of Piperazine Diastereomers in Reversed-Phase Liquid Chromatography

The effect of organic modifier concentration on retention and selectivity of two piperazine diastereomers in a typical n-octadecyl-bonded silica (ODS) column was investigated at pH 6.4 and pH 3.0 using phosphate-buffered acetonitrile (MeCN/H₂O) and methanol (MeOH/H₂O) mobile phases. The results show the logarithmic retention factors decrease with increasing organic concentration in a less rectilinear fashion in the MeCN/H₂O system than in the MeOH/H₂O system at high organic concentrations at both pHs. At pH 6.4, the MeOH/H₂O system provided significantly higher diastereomer selectivity than the MeCN/H₂O system, which can be ascribed to the hydrogen bonding interaction of methanol (as a hydrogen donor) with the piperazine amine moiety of the solute (as a hydrogen acceptor). At pH 3.0, both mobile phases provided high selectivity, in which both acetonitrile and methanol acted as hydrogen acceptors, while the protonated amine acted as the hydrogen donor. The effect of temperature on retention and selectivity was also studied in the two mobile phase systems at both pHs. It was found that at pH 6.4 the retention and selectivity were enthalpically driven in the MeOH/H₂O system, while entropically driven in the MeCN/H₂O system. However, the retention was entropically driven and the selectivity enthalpically driven in both systems at pH 3.0. Locally preferential solvating and hydrogen bonding effects are proposed to explain the anomalous retention and selectivity behaviors.