Limonene in Arizona liquid systems used in countercurrent chromatography. II Polarity and stationary-phase retention.

The previous article in this series described the physico-chemical properties and chemical compositions of the two phases of the limonene-ethyl acetate-ethanol-water biphasic liquid system. This system was designed to be a "green" version of the so-called Arizona (AZ) scale of heptane-ethyl acetate-methanol compositions in which the heptane-ethyl acetate volume ratio is exactly the same as the methanol-water ratio. The first major difference between the standard and "green" AZ systems is the difference in upper and lower phase densities. The higher density of limonene compared with heptane greatly reduces the density difference of the "green" system: half the compositions have a density difference lower than 0.06 g mL(-1), precluding their use in hydrodynamic CCC columns. The other major difference is the phase polarity. The better distribution of ethanol between the upper organic and lower aqueous phases of the "green" AZ scale renders them more polar than their counterparts in standard heptane-based compositions. The test solutes aspirin and coumarin have higher distribution constants in the "green" AZ compositions. It is revealed that a hydrostatic column is suitable for use with all "green" compositions, with very good phase retention and limited driving pressure at high flow rates. A hydrodynamic column only functioned at limited flow rates with polar compositions of sufficient phase-density difference. The CCC chromatograms obtained with different compositions and columns are shown, and their peak position and sharpness discussed.

Ionic liquids in separation techniques.

The growing interest in ionic liquids (ILs) has resulted in an exponentially increasing production of analytical applications. The potential of ILs in chemistry is related to their unique properties as non-molecular solvents: a negligible vapor pressure associated to a high thermal stability. ILs found uses in different sub-disciplines of analytical chemistry. After drawing a rapid picture of the physicochemical properties of selected ILs, this review focuses on their use in separation techniques: gas chromatography (GC), liquid chromatography (LC) and electrophoretic methods (CE). In LC and CE, ILs are not used as pure solvents, but rather diluted in aqueous solutions. In this situation ILs are just salts. They are dual in nature. Too often the properties of the cations are taken as the properties of the IL itself. The lyotropic theory is recalled and the effects of a chaotropic anion are pointed out. Many results can be explained considering all ions present in the solution. Ion-pairing and ion-exchange mechanisms are always present, associated with hydrophobic interactions, when dealing with IL in diluted solutions. Chromatographic and electrophoretic methods are also mainly employed for the control and monitoring of ILs. These methods are also considered. ILs will soon be produced on an industrial scale and it will be necessary to develop reliable analytical procedures for their analysis and control.

Recent advances on ionic liquid uses in separation techniques.

The molten organic salts with melting point below 100°C, commonly called ionic liquids (ILs) have found numerous uses in separation sciences due to their exceptional properties as non molecular solvents, namely, a negligible vapor pressure, a high thermal stability, and unique solvating properties due to polarity and their ionic character of molten salts. Other properties, such as viscosity, boiling point, water solubility, and electrochemical window, are adjustable playing with which anion is associated with which cation. This review focuses on recent development of the uses of ILs in separation techniques actualizing our 2008 article (same authors, J. Chromatogr. A, 1184 (2008) 6-18) focusing on alkyl methylimidazolium salts. These developments include the use of ILs in nuclear waste reprocessing, highly thermally stable ILs that allowed for the introduction of polar gas chromatography capillary columns able to work at temperature never seen before (passing 300°C), the use of ILs in liquid chromatography and capillary electrophoresis, and the introduction of tailor-made ILs for mass spectrometry detection of trace anions at the few femtogram level. The recently introduced deep eutectic solvents are not exactly ILs, they are related enough so that their properties and uses in countercurrent chromatography are presented.

Ionic liquids versus triethylamine as mobile phase additives in the analysis of beta-blockers.

A comparative study of peak shape, elution behavior, elution strength and resolution of seven beta-blockers (acebutolol, alprenolol, labetalol, metoprolol, nadolol, pindolol and propranolol) chromatographed with aqueous-organic mobile phases containing additives such as the ionic liquid (IL) 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium (BMIM BF(4)) or triethylamine (TEA) is performed using a conventional reversed-phase Kromasil C(18) column and isocratic elution. The efficiencies and asymmetry factors achieved for the group of beta-blockers in the Kromasil C(18) column improve when the cationic modifiers are added to the aqueous-organic mobile phase as competing additives for the silanol active sites. BMIM BF(4) is a significantly better additive compared to TEA. The improvement is more notably for the asymmetry factor, BMIM BF(4) allowing to obtain higher plate numbers than TEA at the same concentration. The effects of both modifiers on elution strength and retention factors are, however, different. TEA decreases the solute retention factors when BMIM BF(4) does not change them significantly. Using other additives taken in the IL family such as 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium hexafluorophosphate and 1-octyl-3-methylimidazolium tetrafluoroborate (OMIM BF(4)), it is shown that the silanol screening effect is always observed, due to the IL cation, when it is possible to increase or to decrease the solute retention factors playing with the hydrophobic nature or chaotropic character of its anion.

Effect of ionization and the nature of the mobile phase in quantitative structure-retention relationship studies.

The octanol-water distribution constant, commonly called partition coefficient, Po/w, is a parameter often retained as a measure of the hydrophobicity of a molecule. log Po/w, for a given molecule, can be conveniently evaluated constructing correlation lines between standard retention factor logarithms (log k) in reversed-phase liquid chromatography (RPLC) and standard log Po/w values. Many compounds of pharmaceutical interest can be quite hydrophobic and have, simultaneously, basic nitrogen atoms or acidic sulfur containing groups in their structure. This renders them ionizable. The hydrophobicity of the molecular drug form (Po/w value) is completely different from its ionic form (log Po/w(+ or -) value). The actual hydrophobicity of such ionizable molecule depends on the pH. It can be represented by an apparent Papp value that takes into account the amount of compound in its molecular and ionic state combining the Po/w and Po/w(+ or -) values. In this work, log k in RPLC for ionizable as well as non-ionizable pharmaceutical compounds with different therapeutic properties (10 beta-blockers, seven tricyclic antidepressants (TA), eight steroids and 12 sulfonamides) were correlated with log Po/w. Similar correlations were done between log k and the corrected log Papp values at pH 3. Aqueous-organic mobile phases containing acetonitrile (conventional RPLC) and micellar-organic mobile phases (micellar liquid chromatography, MLC), prepared with the anionic surfactant sodium dodecyl sulfate and the organic solvents acetonitrile, propanol or pentanol, were also used to elute the compounds. All mobile phases were buffered at pH 3. Using conventional retention RPLC data, the correlation of log k with log Po/w, was satisfactory for steroids because they cannot ionize. For ionizable beta-blockers and TAs, the use of log Papp values improved the quality of the correlations, but yielded similar results for sulfonamides. In MLC, since an electrostatic interaction is added to hydrophobic forces, poorer correlations were obtained in all cases. The retention data obtained in RPLC also seems to correlate better with the biological activity of the drugs.

Revisiting resolution in hydrodynamic countercurrent chromatography: tubing bore effect.

A major challenge in countercurrent chromatography (CCC), the technique that works with a support-free biphasic liquid system, is to retain the liquid stationary phase inside the CCC column (Sf parameter). Two solutions are commercially available: the hydrostatic CCC columns, also called centrifugal partition chromatographs (CPC), with disks of interconnected channels and rotary seals, and the hydrodynamic CCC columns with bobbins of coiled open tube and no rotary seals. It was demonstrated that the amount of liquid stationary phase retained by a coiled tube was higher with larger bore tubing than with small bore tubes. At constant column volume, small bore tubing will be longer producing more efficiency than larger bore tube that will better retain the liquid stationary phase. Since the resolution equation in CCC is depending on both column efficiency and stationary phase retention ratio, the influence of the tubing bore should be studied. This theoretical work showed that there is an optimum tubing bore size depending on solute partition coefficient and mobile phase flow rate. The interesting result of the theoretical study is that larger tubing bores allow for dramatically reduced experiment durations for all solutes: in reversed phase CCC (polar mobile phase), hydrophobic solutes are usually highly retained. These apolar solutes can be separated by the same coil at high flow rates and reduced Sf with similar retention times as polar solutes separated at smaller flow rates and much higher Sf.

On the use of ionic liquids as mobile phase additives in high-performance liquid chromatography. A review.

The popularity of ionic liquids (ILs) has grown during the last decades in several analytical separation techniques. Consequently, the number of reports devoted to the applications of ILs is still increasing. This review is focused on the use of ILs (mainly imidazolium-based associated to chloride and tetrafluoroborate) as mobile phase additives in high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). In this approach, ILs just function as salts, but keep several kinds of intermolecular interactions, which are useful for chromatographic separations. Both cation and anion can be adsorbed on the stationary phase, creating a bilayer. This gives rise to hydrophobic, electrostatic and other specific interactions with the stationary phase and solutes, which modify the retention behaviour and peak shape. This review updates the advances in this field, with emphasis on topics not always deeply considered in the literature, such as the mechanisms of retention, the estimation of the suppressing potency of silanols, modelling and optimisation of the chromatographic performance, and the comparison with other additives traditionally used to avoid the silanol problem.

Effect of a variety of organic additives on retention and efficiency in micellar liquid chromatography

The effect of 21 organic additives (alkanols, alkane diols, dipolar aprotic solvents, alkanes) on the chromatographic behavior (retention, elution strength, efficiency) of probe solutes of widely differing hydrophobicity, such as benzene and 2-ethylanthraquinone, have been examined using a C18 stationary phase and sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) micellar mobile phases. The mobile-phase elution strength parallels the octanol-water partition coefficients of the additives or their ability to bind to the SDS micellar system, due to the increased solubility in the mobile phase and reduced affinity for the additive-modified surfactant-coated stationary phase. The comparison of the elution strength of micellar mobile phases with that of a reference acetonitrile-water system indicates that the elution strength is lower for micellar systems and depends on the nature of the eluted solute. The displacement of the solute-micelle and solute-stationary phase binding equilibria is quantified for several probe solutes eluted with micellar mobile phases in the presence of 1-propanol, 1-butanol, 1-pentanol, and acetonitrile. A correlation was also observed between the number of theoretical plates and the hydrophobicity of the alcohol additives: the efficiency initially increased steeply and reached a plateau. Compared to benzene, a more hydrophobic additive was needed to attain the maximum efficiency for the more hydrophobic 2-ethylanthraquinone analyte. Dipolar aprotic solvents appear to be somewhat more effective in enhancing the efficiency than alcohols. The results are rationalized in terms of the ability of the organic additives to alter the composition, structure, dynamics, and properties of the micelles and the surfactant-coated stationary phase.

Test to evaluate countercurrent chromatographs. Liquid stationary phase retention and chromatographic resolution.

Countercurrent chromatography (CCC) is a liquid chromatography (LC) technique with a special column able to retain a liquid stationary phase while the liquid mobile phase is pumped through. The coil planet centrifuge machines are made of open tube wound on spools. A simple test is proposed. The methanol-water (90:10, v/v)-heptane biphasic system is used with heptane as the mobile phase in the ascending or tail-to-head mode. The methanol-water stationary phase retention volume is measured at different flow-rates and rotor rotation speeds. After every machine equilibration, an alkylbenzene mixture is injected and the retention factors, peak efficiencies and resolution factors are measured or calculated for each solute. The wealth of information contained in the data set obtained is demonstrated. Four coil planet centrifuge machines of very different characteristics and one hydrostatic CCC machine with channels and ducts were submitted to the test. It was shown that the Sf, stationary retention factor, obtained with these machines was linearly dependent on the square root of F, the mobile phase flow-rate [Q. Du, C. Wu, G. Qian, P. Wu, Y. Ito, J. Chromatogr. A 835 (1999) 231-235]. It is shown that the slopes of the Sf versus F(1/2) lines could be related to a minimum rotor rotation, omega(mini), necessary to obtain the hydrodynamic equilibrium. The Sf and F parameters give the mobile phase linear velocity, u. It is shown that u is proportional to the square root of omega, the rotor rotation speed. The slope and intercept of the latter relationship also result in an omega(mini) value coherent with the first one. With the peak efficiencies and chromatographic resolution factors obtained for toluene and hexylbenzene, the parameters: number of plates per tubing turn, machine volume for one plate, and tubing length for one plate, were calculated and compared for the five machines. The internal diameter of the tubing used is shown to be a critical parameter acting on the machine volume and number of tubing turns.

Determination of liquid-liquid partition coefficients by separation methods.

By essence, all kinds of chromatographic methods use the partitioning of solutes between a stationary and a mobile phase to separate them. Not surprisingly, separation methods are useful to determine accurately the liquid-liquid distribution constants, commonly called partition coefficient. After briefly recalling the thermodynamics of the partitioning of solutes between two liquid phases, the review lists the different methods of measurement in which chromatography is involved. The shake-flask method is described. The ease of the HPLC method is pointed out with its drawback: the correlation is very sensitive to congeneric effect. Microemulsion electrokinetic capillary electrophoresis has become a fast and reliable method commonly used in industry. Counter-current chromatography (CCC) is a liquid chromatography method that uses a liquid stationary phase. Since the CCC solute retention volumes are only depending on their partition coefficients, it is the method of choice for partition coefficient determination with any liquid system. It is shown that Ko/w, the octanol-water partition coefficients, are obtained by CCC within the -1 < log Ko/w < 4 range, without any correlation or standardization using octanol as the stationary phase. Examples of applications of the knowledge of liquid-liquid partition coefficient in the vast world of solvent extraction and hydrophobicity estimation are presented.

pH dependence of the hydrophobicity of beta-blocker amine compounds measured by counter-current chromatography.

The octanol-water partition coefficients (Poct) of 17 antiadrenergic beta-blocker compounds were determined by counter-current chromatography (CCC). Since CCC uses a biphasic liquid system, the octanol-water liquid system was used with essentially an octanol stationary phase and aqueous buffer mobile phase. The Poct coefficients were obtained directly without any extrapolation. The measured Poct values were in the 0.0015-4070 range (-2.8 < log Poct < 3.6). Since the beta-blocking agents are ionizable compounds, the Poct values obtained were strongly dependent on the aqueous-phase pH. The apparent Poct coefficients of the beta-blockers were determined at three different pH values (approximately 3, 7 and 11) using 0.01 M ammonium phosphate buffers saturated with octanol. A model allowed us to obtain the molecular and ionic Poct value using the solute pKa with these three experimental octanol-water coefficients. Often, the Poct coefficients of the molecular forms obtained with the CCC method differ significantly from computed literature values and/or experimental values obtained by extrapolation. Relationships between biological properties and hydrophobicity were also examined.

Nonionic micellar liquid chromatography coupled to immobilized enzyme reactors.

Immobilized enzyme reactors are used as post-column reactors to modify the detectability of analytes. An immobilized amino acid oxidase reactor was prepared and coupled to an immobilized peroxidase reactor to detect low level of amino acids by fluorescence of the homovanilic dimer produced. A cholesterol oxidase reactor was prepared to detect cholesterol and metabolites by 241 nm UV absorbance of the enone produced. The preparation of the porous glass beads with the immobilized enzymes is described. Micellar liquid chromatography is used with non-ionic micellar phases to separate the amino acids or cholesterol derivatives. It is demonstrated that the non ionic Brij 35 micellar phases are very gentle for the enzyme activity allowing the reactor activity to remain at a higher level and for a much longer time than with hydro-organic classical chromatographic mobile phases or aqueous buffers. The coupling of nonionic micellar phases with enzymatic detection gave limits of detection of 32 pmol (4.8 ng injected) of methionine and 50 pmol (19 ng injected) of 20alpha-hydroxy cholesterol. The immobilized enzyme reactors could be used continuously for a week without losing their activity. It is shown that the low efficiency obtained with micellar liquid chromatography is compensated by the possibility offered by the technique to easily adjust selectivity.

Facile liquid chromatographic enantioresolution of native amino acids and peptides using a teicoplanin chiral stationary phase.

The glycopeptide antibiotic teicoplanin is shown to be a highly effective stationary phase chiral selector for the resolution of underivatized amino-acid and imino-acid enantiomers. Fifty four of these compounds (including all chiral protein amino acids) as well as a number of dipeptides were resolved. Hydro-organic mobile phases are used and no buffers or added salts are needed in most cases. Hence the purified analytes are easily isolated in pure form, if needed, by evaporating of the solvent. The effect of pH, organic modifier type and amount are discussed. The enantioselective separation mechanism is examined using both molecular modeling and retention data. The strongest stereoselective interaction is for carboxy-terminated D-amino-acids. In case of peptides, it is not necessary for these to be a D-, D-, terminal sequence for strong interactions. In some cases, including Ala-Ala, the L-, D-, terminal sequence showed greater interaction with the teicoplanin chiral stationary phase.

Micellar versus hydro-organic mobile phases for retention-hydrophobicity relationship studies with ionizable diuretics and an anionic surfactant.

Logarithm of retention factors (log k) of a group of 14 ionizable diuretics were correlated with the molecular (log P o/w) and apparent (log P(app)) octanol-water partition coefficients. The compounds were chromatographed using aqueous-organic (reversed-phase liquid chromatography, RPLC) and micellar-organic mobile phases (micellar liquid chromatography, MLC) with the anionic surfactant sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS), in the pH range 3-7, and a conventional octadecylsilane column. Acetonitrile was used as the organic modifier in both modes. The quality of the correlations obtained for log P(app) at varying ionization degree confirms that this correction is required in the aqueous-organic mixtures. The correlation is less improved with SDS micellar media because the acid-base equilibriums are shifted towards higher pH values for acidic compounds. In micellar chromatography, an electrostatic interaction with charged solutes is added to hydrophobic forces; consequently, different correlations should be established for neutral and acidic compounds, and for basic compounds. Correlations between log k and the isocratic descriptors log k(w), log k(wm) (extrapolated retention to pure water in the aqueous-organic and micellar-organic systems, respectively), and psi0 (extrapolated mobile phase composition giving a k = 1 retention factor or twice the dead time), and between these descriptors and log P(app) were also satisfactory, although poorer than those between log k and log P(app) due to the extrapolation. The study shows that, in the particular case of the ionizable diuretics studied, classical RPLC gives better results than MLC with SDS in the retention hydrophobicity correlations.

Countercurrent chromatographic separation: a hydrodynamic approach developed for extraction columns.

In countercurrent chromatography (CCC) both stationary and mobile liquids undergo intense mixing in the variable force field of a coil planet centrifuge and the separation process, like the separation in conventional solvent extraction column, is influenced by longitudinal mixing in the phases and mass transfer between them. This paper describes how the residence time distribution (or the elution profile) of a solute in CCC devices and the interpretation of experimental peaks, can be described by a recently developed cell model of longitudinal mixing. The model considers a CCC column as a cascade of perfectly mixed equal-size cells, the number of which is determined by the rates of longitudinal mixing in the stationary and mobile phases. Experiments were carried out to demonstrate the validation of the model and the possibility of predicting the partitioning behaviour of the solutes. The methods for estimating model parameters are discussed. Longitudinal mixing rates in stationary and mobile phases have been experimentally determined and experimental elution profiles are compared with simulated peaks. It is shown that using the cell model the peak shape for a solute with a given distribution constant can be predicted from experimental data on other solutes.

Evaluation of the macrocyclic glycopeptide A-40,926 as a high-performance liquid chromatographic chiral selector and comparison with teicoplanin chiral stationary phase.

A new macrocyclic antibiotic of the vancomycin family, referred to by its industrial designation as A-40,926, was bonded to 5 microm silica particles and utilised as a chiral stationary phase (CSP). Since A-40,926 is structurally related to teicoplanin, the A-40,926 CSP was compared to a commercially available teicoplanin CSP. A set of 28 chiral compounds, including amino-acids and related compounds, compounds with a ring containing the stereogenic centre, compounds bearing aromatic structures near their stereogenic centres and alcohols, was tested for enantioseparation on the two CSPs. The results are compared and discussed in terms of enantioselective Gibbs energy difference. The A-40,926 CSP was able to resolve one compound that was not resolved by the teicoplanin CSP. However, it could not separate four compounds that the teicoplanin CSP did separate. It is shown that the A-40,926 CSP is complementary to the teicoplanin CSP, thereby enlarging the number of enantiomers that can be separated by the macrocyclic glycopeptide based CSPs.

Dry adsorbed emulsions: an oral sustained drug delivery system.

The oral sustained drug delivery system "dry adsorbed emulsion" was defined as an organized dispersion of hydrophilic and hydrophobic particles whose structure was initiated by the structure of a water-in-oil (W/O) emulsion. Sodium salicylate was dissolved in the aqueous phase of the primary W/O emulsion as an active drug. The aqueous phase of the W/O emulsion was adsorbed by a hydrophilic silica and then a hydrophobic silica was added to the preparation to obtain a stable and solid pulverulent form. The physicochemical structure of a "dry adsorbed emulsion" was described and observed by electron microscopy. The effect of different oils, castor oil and a silicone oil, on the sustained drug release was studied at two different pH values, 1.2 and 7.4, to simulate the gastric and intestinal medium, respectively. The properties of these forms were retained for more than one year at room temperature storage.

Water-organic solvent systems in countercurrent chromatography: Liquid stationary phase retention and solvent polarity.

Countercurrent chromatography (CCC) is a separation technique in which the stationary phase is a liquid. The liquid stationary phase retention is a critical problem in CCC. The retention of 18 organic solvents in a hydrodynamic CCC apparatus was measured with an aqueous mobile phase, the centrifuge spin rate and the mobile phase flow rate being constant, 800 rpm and 2 ml/min, respectively. Conversely, water retention was measured when the 18 solvents were the mobile phases. A direct relationship between the liquid stationary phase retention and the phase density difference was found. The liquid phase density difference is the most important parameter for stationary phase retention in a hydrodynamic CCC apparatus with coiled tubes. The chromatographic retention of formanilide was measured in biphasic systems and expressed as the formanilide partition coefficient. It is shown that the partition coefficient correlates with the Reichardt polarity index of the organic solvent when the liquid stationary phase retention volume does not.

Electrochemical investigation of acid-base properties of ordered liquid systems.

Acid-base properties of ordered media were investigated via potentiometry, polarography and electrochemical probes. Electrochemical probes have a pH-dependent reduction potential and their oxidized and reduced forms have a different affinity for aqueous and organic phases. Solutions of anionic, cationic and nonionic surfactants were investigated. One anionic and one cationic surfactant stabilized emulsion were studied. A water-dodecane-pentanol-anionic surfactant microemulsion and a water-heptane-butanol-cationic surfactant were also investigated for several compositions. In micellar solutions and emulsions, it was possible to standardize and use the classical glass electrode for pH values in the range 1-12. The hydrogen electrode was required in the microemulsion systems. The reduction of electrochemical probes was studied by polarography. It is shown that in the ordered media studied, the aqueous phase played the most important role in micellar solutions and in O/W emulsions, as far as acid-base properties were concerned. In microemulsions, the acid-base properties of the aqueous phase were very different to those of water. The alizarin probe could be reduced at a "local" pH of about 12 when the aqueous phase pH was only 6.

Beta-cyclodextrin chiral stationary phases for liquid chromatography. Effect of the spacer arm on chiral recognition.

Cyclodextrins (CDs) can be bound on silica to prepare chiral stationary phases (CSPs) for liquid chromatography. The cyclodextrin ring is connected to a spacer previously bonded on the silica surface. Three different CD-CSPs were prepared with three different spacers. (i) A dimethylethoxysilane with a linear 6 carbon chain produced a monomeric layer. The bonded CD units can move and rotate freely. (ii) The corresponding trimethoxysilane produced a polymeric layer. The bonded CD units were not located at the same distance of the silica surface, but they could still move and rotate freely. (iii) The third spacer contained a cyclohexyl ring that may introduce some conformational rigidity in the CD connection to silica. The three CSPs prepared contained a CD surface coverage of about 0.3 micromol/m(2) which is approximately half of the maximum theoretical CD coverage. The first spacer was the most efficient to bond CDs with an average value of 1.7 spacers per CD ring, whereas 5.5 spacers per CD ring were needed with the two other spacers. The chiral recognition capabilities of the three phases were compared using 14 racemic compounds. No pronounced differences were noted, but the CSP prepared with the dimethylethoxysilane monomeric spacer seems to be the most efficient for chiral recognition.