Review on the chemical and thermal stability of stationary phases for reversed-phase liquid chromatography

At present, in high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) for the majority of analyses, reversed-phase liquid chromatography (RPLC) is the separation mode of choice. Faster method development procedures using aggressive eluents under elevated temperature conditions, the need for improved selectivities, efficiencies and resolution, the reduction of solvent consumption and also the decrease of analysis times require reversed-phase (RP) columns of high chemical and thermal stability. Until now, the majority of columns for RPLC separations are manufactured from silica substrates. Silica has many favorable properties making this material nearly ideal as a support for RP columns. However, its solubility, that increases considerably in eluents of pH above ±7, is a drawback preventing its widespread use over the entire pH range. In addition, also the thermal stability of silica is limited. Recently, however, substantial progress has been made in the synthesis of RPLC silica-based stationary phases showing satisfactory thermal and chemical stability under many different experimental conditions. Also, new substrates mainly based on other inorganic substrates like, e.g. alumina and zirconia have been developed now as a starting material for the preparation of RPLC stationary phases of improved chemical and thermal stability. In addition, for the same reasons, many efforts have also been made to synthesize polymer and also polymer-coated phases. These latter phases, more particularly those based on zirconia, but also polymer phases show a high degree of chemical and thermal stability compared to silica counterparts. In this paper, an overview will be given of the state-of-the-art of the thermal and chemical stability of the different available stationary phases for RPLC.