Retention characteristics of aliphatic compounds on cellulose acetates as a stationary phase with an aqueous mobile phase

Summary Cellulose and cellulose mono-, di-, and triacetate were used as stationary phases for liquid chromatography with water as a mobile phase, and the retention behavior of alcohols, ethers, ketones, and chlorides was examined. For cellulose acetate columns, the logarithm of the specific retention volume, (logV _g ^* ), correlated linearly with the logarithm of partition coefficient between 1-octanol and water (log K_o/w), for each homologous group, but all solutes were unretained on cellulose columns. With the exception of chlorides, the intercept values of the log V _g ^* –log K_o/w regression lines increased significantly with increase of acetyl content of cellulose acetates, but the slopes of the regression lines changed little. This suggests that hydrophobic interaction between the acetyl groups of cellulose acetates and the alkyl chains of the solutes is the dominant factor in the retention.The capacity factors for 1-alcohols with cellulos diacetate column indicated a maximum at a column temperature of about 40°C. This unique retention behavior was assumed to be caused by small structural change of the cellulose acetate polymer, because this temperature effect on the retention corresponded with effects observed by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC).