Evolution of strategies to achieve baseline separation of ten anionic, water-soluble sulfated estrogens via achiral packed column supercritical fluid chromatography

Near baseline separation of ten sulfated sodium salts of various structurally related estrogens employing a variety of bonded stationary phase packed columns was obtained using a conventional supercritical fluid chromatograph coupled with UV detection. Critical pairs 2/3 (8,9-dehydroestrone/17β-dihydroequilin) and 6/7 (17α-estradiol or 17α-dihydroequilin/estrone), however, failed to baseline separate. In all preliminary separations, 10 mM ammonium acetate and variable percentages of H2O were initially used as co-additives in conjunction with methanol as a modifier. Different modifier programs and temperatures were employed to optimize the separation in a timely manner. A 2-ethylpyridine column provided the best separation compared to bare silica, diol, and cyano-based bonded phase columns. The employment of both salt and water as additives to the methanol-modified CO2 mobile phase suggested a mixed mode separation mechanism involving both ion pairing of each anionic sulfated estrogen with ammonium ion and hydrophilic interaction facilitated by partitioning of analyte between the aqueous solvated stationary phase and the aqueous component of the mobile phase. Upon more extensive study with either iso-propylamine or formic acid-ammonium formate buffer, the critical anionic pairs were 95% baseline resolved.