pH dependence of tailing in reversed-phase chromatography of a cationic dye: measurement of the strong adsorption site surface density

A question that has interested Dr. J.J. Kirkland is addressed: what is the nature of the silanols that cause tailing to persist at low pH in reversed-phase chromatography? Chromatograms for a cationic dye, 1,1′-didodecyl-3,3,3′3′-tetramethylindocarbocyanine perchlorate (DiI), were studied at varying pH using an Agilent SB-C8 column and 80% ACN/water for six DiI concentrations ranging from 0.9 to 316 μM. The chromatograms showed increased retention and tailing from pH 1 to 5, as expected. Simulations of the chromatograms agreed well with experiment for a bi-Langmuir isotherm with weak (C8) and strong (silica) adsorption sites. The simulation parameters revealed that the number of strong adsorption sites decreases by 40% from pH 1 to 5, which indicates that the silanols causing tailing are in the SiOH, not the SiO−, form. This seems paradoxical because tailing increases with increasing pH. The simulation parameters reveal that this increased tailing from pH 1 to 5 owes to doubling of the partition coefficient for DiI to the strong adsorption site, which more than compensates for the decreasing number of sites. We attribute this increased partition coefficient to increased long-range coulombic interactions with the increasingly abundant SiO− groups at higher pH, which boosts DiI’s partition coefficient for both the C8 and SiOH sites. The picture thus emerges that for DiI, higher pH causes increased tailing because the SiO− groups exacerbate tailing that actually originates from adsorption to SiOH groups.