Preparation of two ionic liquid bonded stationary phases and comparative evaluation under mixed-mode of reversed phase/ hydrophilic interaction/ ion exchange chromatography

The present work describes the preparation of two ionic liquid and carboxyl acid silane reagents via photo-initiated thiol-ene click chemistry that have been bonded to silica to afford two mixed-mode stationary phases (Sil-C4Im-C9Co and Sil-C9Im-C4Co). The two stationary phases provided satisfactory retention repeatability and efficiencies. The influence of acetonitrile content, salt concentration and pH of the mobile phase was investigated to clarify the retention properties of the prepared stationary phases. The results showed that the prepared Sil-C4Im-C9Co and Sil-C9Im-C4Co undergo multiple interactions with solutes under different chromatographic conditions. The retention mechanisms were further studied by the linear energy solvation relationship and Van't Hoff plots. Finally, the stationary phases were employed to separate hydrophobic solutes (alkylbenzenes and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons) under reversed phase liquid chromatography (RPLC) mode, hydrophilic solutes (carboxylic acids, nucleosides and bases) under hydrophilic interaction liquid chromatography (HILIC) mode and inorganic anions under ion-exchange chromatography (IEC) mode, providing excellent performance and varying selectivity when compared with a commercial column. The bonding method in this work is feasible and the prepared stationary phases are promising when employed in RPLC/HILIC/IEC mixed-mode chromatography applications.