Effect of 18-Crown-6 on the Separation Selectivity of Organic Compounds by Reversed-Phase High-Performance Liquid Chromatography

The effect of the addition of 18-crown-6 to the water–methanol and water–acetonitrile mobile phase on the selectivity of the separation of different derivatives of phenol, aniline, and benzoic acid by reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography was studied. It was demonstrated that the retention of compounds with the protonated primary amino group is increased in the presence of 18-crown-6 in the eluent, which can be explained by complexation between analyte compounds and macrocycles. For compounds containing the hydroxyl group (phenol and its derivatives), the addition of 18-crown-6 to the mobile phase leads to some decrease in retention. It was demonstrated that the selectivity of 18-crown-6 can change depending on the nature of the positional isomer (ortho, meta, orpara) of the analyte and the nature of the solvent increasing or decreasing the complexing ability of the sorbate with the macrocycle. The effect of the concentration of crown ether on the retention of compounds with the protonated amino group was revealed, and the complexation mechanism was suggested.