Aliphatic carboxylic acids and alcohols as efficiency and elution strength enhancers in micellar liquid chromatography

Micellar liquid chromatography (MLC) uses surfactant solutions as mobile phases with added organic additives to enhance both the elution strength and the chromatographic efficiency. Two aliphatic carboxylic acids (1-butanoic and 1-pentanoic) were used as MLC additives and compared with the two corresponding alcohols (1-butanol, 1-pentanol) in terms of elution strength, efficiency and selectivity. A set of 11 phenol derivatives was used as probe compounds. All micellar mobile phases were prepared with sodium dodecylsulfate (SDS) with concentration ranging from 0.05 to 0.15 M and the modifier content within 1.0 and 5.0% (v/v). The elution strength of different mobile phases containing a constant amount of SDS and different amounts of modifiers; and mobile phases containing a constant amount of modifier and different SDS concentration were determined and discussed. The effect of the acid modifiers on efficiency was studied constructing van Deemter plots that showed no minimum within the 0.01–0.7 mL/min flow rate range studied. Temperature effects were also studied constructing the classical van’t Hoff plots. The slight curvature of the plots in the 25–70 °C range may indicate some modification of the surfactant-bonded moiety layer on the stationary phase surface. Since no definitive advantage of the use of aliphatic acids were established compared to their alcohol counterpart, their terrible smell will probably preclude their use as MLC organic modifiers.