Quantitative structure–retention (property) relationships in micellar electrokinetic chromatography

Quantitative structure–retention relationships (QSRRs) attempt to quantitatively understand the relationship between structure and retention and quantitative structure–property relationships (QSPRs) to explore the prediction of molecular properties from retention in chromatography. The application of these techniques to micellar electrokinetic chromatography (MEKC) and microemulsion electrokinetic chromatography (MEEKC) using surfactants, vesicles and liposomes is reviewed. A database of system constants for the solvation parameter model is assembled and critically discussed with respect to the interpretation of solvation properties of micellar pseudophases and their use to identify correlation models for the estimation of physicochemical and environmental properties from retention in MEKC and MEEKC. The use of structure-generated descriptors to model retention in MEKC is discussed and compared with experimental-based techniques. It is shown that the possibilities of exploiting the collection of tools that underpin QSRRs and QSPRs studies are only just starting to be realized in MEKC and more work is needed to convert from these possibilities to the realization of reliable and robust models for compounds of diverse structure.