Silanol suppressing potency of alkyl-imidazolium ionic liquids on C18 stationary phases

Residual silanols on C18 columns yield undesirable slow-kinetics ion-exchange interactions with positively charged basic compounds that result in asymmetrical peaks, low efficiencies and long retention times. The purity of the silica employed as supporting material, and the technique used to form the bonded phase, which varies with the brand and manufacturer, give rise to different amounts of residual silanols in the packings, and consequently, different chromatographic performance. One of the most efficient and widespread strategies to reduce or even eliminate the different performance among columns is the addition of a reagent to the mobile phase to block the silanol sites. However, the intrinsic nature of both stationary phase and additive leads to particular results. In this work, a group of basic compounds were analysed using six C18 stationary phases (Zorbax SB-C18, X-Terra MS C18, Kromasil, Lichrospher, Nucleosil, and Spherisorb) and acetonitrile–water mixtures. Two ionic liquids (ILs), 1-butyl- and 1-hexyl-3-methyl-imidazolium tetrafluoroborates, were added to the mobile phases to evaluate their silanol suppressing potency, based on the decreased retention of the basic compounds when the silanols are blocked (described by the Horváth equation), and the improvement in peak profile (described by the plots of the peak half-widths at diverse retention times). The suppressing potency based on the retention can be misleading when the adsorption of the IL anion is not negligible, since the anion attracts the cationic basic compounds increasing the retention. However, the accessibility of basic compounds to the silanols is prevented by both IL cation and anion, improving the peak profiles for all stationary phases. This was especially remarkable for Spherisorb, which in the absence of additive yielded by far the worst performance. 1-Hexyl-3-methyl-imidazolium tetrafluoroborate was the best additive in terms of retention and peak profile (width and asymmetry).