Thermodynamic approach for studying both the retention and complexation mechanisms with hydroxy-propyl-β-cyclodextrin of a phenoxy-propionic acid herbicide series

The retention and complexation mechanisms of a herbicide series were studied from a chromatographic approach using a novel column called “Nautilus®”. The effects of water fraction and the hydroxy-propyl-β-cyclodextrin (HP-β-CD) concentration in the mobile phase were analysed in relation to the column temperature. Two retention models of phenoxy-propionic acid (PPA) derivatives were investigated. It was shown that the retention mechanism was led by free PPA herbicide for low HP-β-CD concentrations and by the PPA/HP-β-CD complex for the highest ones. In addition, an enthalpy–entropy compensation study revealed that both the solute retention and complexation mechanisms were independent of the number of chlorine atoms in the structure. Also the thermodynamic results showed that (1) the retention process depended on the water fraction (X) in the mobile phase and (2) the PPA/HP-β-CD complexation mechanism was shown to be entropically controlled.