A Note on: A Preliminary Investigation of the Influence of the Stationary Phase in Ion-Pair Thin-Layer Chromatography

Abstract

Ion-pair (IP) reagents are routinely used for the chromatography of polar ionisable compounds in high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). However, the application of these compounds to the separation of polar substances by thin-layer chromatography (TLC) has received much less attention (see refs 1 to 5 for some applications). In previous studies[4–8] we examined the use of quaternary ammonium IP-reagents as an aid to the TLC of some polar organic acids on a limited range of stationary phases (silica gel, C₁₈ bonded silica gel and paraffin coated silica gel). Here we describe the results of preliminary studies undertaken using some of the other commercially available stationary phases with a range of ion-pair reagents. The phases investigated were C₂, C₈, aminopropyl (NH₂), cyan-opropyl (CN) and diphenyl bonded silica gels, all of which were compared to a C₁₈ bonded material for the chromatography of four aromatic acids as described below.