Evaluation of high-performance liquid chromatography column retentivity using macromolecular probes: II. Silanophilic interactivity traced by highly polar polymers

A new method of HPLC column retentivity testing utilizes polymeric probes instead of conventional sets of low molar mass substances. The procedure allows at least semiquantitative, separate and independent evaluation of adsorption and partition properties of column packings. In this present work, the method is applied for comparison of the polar interactivities of selected silica gel C18 HPLC columns. It is shown that free silanols which remained on the surface of the end-capped silica C18 column packings are accessible for interaction with highly polar macromolecules. High molar mass polymeric test probes are adsorbed on the surface silanols and their retention volumes increase. As result, deviations from regular size-exclusion chromatographic (SEC) behavior are observed. The extent of retention volume changes depends on both the nature of polymer probes and on column packing type. Adsorption of macromolecules can be suppressed by addition of a highly polar substance to the mobile phase. The amount of polar additive which is needed to attain regular SEC elution of the polymer probe depends on the column packing type and can be used as a characteristic of silanophilic column interactivity. Courses of dependences of retention volumes on sizes of macromolecules indicate the presence of “U-turn” adsorption which allows two and more silanols situated among C18 groups to be occupied simultaneously with the same macromolecule.