Chromatographic Properties of Monolithic Silica Capillary Columns for Polar and Nonpolar Compounds in Reversed-Phase HPLC.

Retention properties of monolithic silica C₁₈ columns were examined for polar and nonpolar compounds. Monolithic silica columns were prepared from two kinds of starting materials, tetramethoxysilane (abbreviated as TMOS) or a mixture of TMOS and methyltrimethoxysilane (abbreviated as Hybrid), and modified with dimethyloctadecylchlorosilane (C₁₈). Retention factors of various compounds on Hybrid-C₁₈ are about twice as much as that on TMOS-C₁₈. The two types of columns showed very similar retention selectivity with few exceptions. TMOS-C₁₈ showed slight preference toward planar polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) compared to bulky aromatic hydrocarbons, while Hybrid-C₁₈ showed opposite tendency. Some TMOS-C₁₈ columns showed peak tailing for PAHs, and also for basic compounds in an acidic mobile phase, while Hybrid-C₁₈ and majority of TMOS-C₁₈ columns resulted in good peak shape for these compounds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]