Study of retention in reversed-phase liquid chromatography using linear solvation energy relationships. I. The stationary phase

In contrast to almost all previous work in which data sets of retention for reversed-phase liquid chromatography were limited to aromatic solutes, in this work the retention of 87 highly variegated, aliphatic and aromatic solutes have been studied using linear solvation energy relationships. Results show excellent statistical fits for these retention data obtained in 50:50 (v/v) acetonitrile-water, on five bonded phase columns differing in silanol group acidity. The fits are equally good when aliphatic and aromatic solute subsets were examined separately. The most important retention-governing solute parameters are the solute volume and hydrogen bond acceptor basicity. The solute dipolarity/polarizability and hydrogen bond donor acidity are statistically significant but chemically minor factors. The relative importance of the solute parameters in explaining the data does not differ for the various bonded phases studied, but there are some subtle differences between the aliphatic and aromatic solute subsets.