Effect of the eluent pH and acidic modifiers in high-performance liquid chromatography retention of basic analytes

The retention of ionogenic bases in liquid chromatography is strongly dependent upon the pH of the mobile phase. Chromatographic behavior of a series of substituted aniline and pyridine basic compounds has been studied on C18 bonded silica using acetonitrile–water (10:90) as the eluent with different pHs and at various concentrations of the acidic modifier counter anions. The effect of different acidic modifiers on solute retention over a pH range from 1.3 to 8.6 was studied. Ionized basic compounds showed increased retention with a decrease of the mobile phase pH. This increase in retention was attributed to the interaction with counter anions of the acidic modifiers. The increase in retention is dependent on the nature of the counter anion and its concentration in the mobile phase. It was shown that altering the concentration of counter anion of the acidic modifier allows the optimization of the selectivity between basic compounds as well as for neutral and acidic compounds.