Preparation and evaluation of an ionic liquid embedded C18 and cellulose co-functionalized stationary phase with mixed-mode and chiral separation abilities

A novel multimode stationary phase with enantiomeric separation ability named Sil-VMB-NCAD was successfully synthesized by combining ionic liquid embedded octadecyl chains and cellulose derivatives on silicon sphere through thiol-ene click chemistry reaction. The following methods were used to characterize the synthesized stationary phase and its intermediate products: nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (NMR), elemental analysis (EA), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR). Hydrophobic analytes (alkylbenzenes, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and positional isomers), ionic compounds (phenols) and anilines were used to investigate the chromatographic behaviour of the Sil-VMB-NCAD column. Meanwhile, to further elucidate the multiple retention mechanisms of the prepared column, the correlations between retention time of analyte and the composition and pH values of the mobile phase was studied. In addition, the chiral separation ability of the prepared column was demonstrated by successfully separating warfarin, ketoprofen, 1-phenyl-l-propanol and styrene oxide under a reversed-phase mode. These results indicated that the Sil-VMB-NCAD column can provide multimode retention mechanisms for the separation of various analytes and achieve enantioseparation ability.