Effect of nature of support and impregnating agent on lipophilicity determination for nonionic surfactants by reversed-phase thin-layer chromatography

Summary The retention of 9 nonylphenyl ethylene oxide oligomers was determined in 15 reversed-phase chromatographic systems using silicone oils of various molecular mass as impregnating agents and silica, cellulose and alumina supports. The data were evaluated with principal component analysis carried out on the covariance and the correlation matrices. The R_M values did not follow the additivity rule and they did not change linearly with increasing length of the ethylene oxide chain. This is probably due to the folded state of the chain in the eluent. The molecular mass of the silicone oils had a negligible effect on the retention whereas the retention increased with increasing level of impregnation. The support considerably influenced the lipophilicity values of these nonionic surfactants and cellulose seemed to be the most appropriate support. Calculations proved that the application of a correlation matrix may cause data distortion; therefore, the use of a covariance matrix is strongly proposed.