Mechanism and prediction of retention of oligomers in normal-phase and reversed-phase HPLC

Summary The simultaneous dependence of the retention in oligomeric series on the number of repeat structural units and on the mobile phase composition may be described by very similar equations for reversed-phase and for normal-phase systems.In reversed-phase systems, the separation selectivity of the individual oligomers is determined mainly by the size and by the polarity of the repeat structural unit, but the influence of a bulky and polar structural residue may also become important so that even reversed order of elution may be observed for oligomeric series with the same oligomeric units but significantly different end groups. For example, oligoethylene glycols are eluted in the order of increasing size of the oligomers, whereas ethoxylated nonylphenols are eluted in the order of decreasing size.In normal-phase systems, the separation selectivity in oligomeric series depends on the adsorption energy and on the adsorbed area of the oligomeric unit. If the oligomeric unit is small, the concentration of the polar solvent in the binary organic mobile phase has only a minor effect on retention and selectivity, which may be controlled by taking account of the nature of the adsorbent and of the polar solvent or by varying the proportion of two polar solvents in a ternary mobile phase.