Evaluation of titania as an ion-exchanger and as a ligand-exchanger in HPLC

Summary The chromatographic properties of titania have been compared with those of zirconia and alumina, by comparison of their relative Lewis acidities whenp-substituted benzoic acids were chromatographed with aqueous mobile phases. The retention behavior ofp-substituted benzoic acids on titania was found to be similar to that on zirconia; the slopes of plots of retention factors against solute pK _a were approximately parallel for all pH values and the slopes obtained were similar to the average slope for zirconia. The shapes of solute peaks on titania were more symmetrical than on alumina and zirconia. The effect of calcination temperature on the chromatographic properties of titania was examined by use of titania prepared at different temperatures. The results obtained clearly showed that the preparation temperature affected the chromatographic properties of titania. It seemed, for example, that titania dried at 40°C behaved as a cation-exchanger, titania heated at 200°C behaved as an amphoteric exchanger, and titania calcined at 600°C behaved as an anion-exchanger in the pH range 4.1–6.5 It was found that the control of the preparation temperature enabled us to make effective use of titania.