Effect of spacer alkyl chain length on retention among three imidazolium stationary phases under various modes in high performance liquid chromatography

The properties of ionic liquids (ILs) greatly influenced the retention of solutes on IL-functionalized stationary phases. In this work, three IL-functionalized stationary phases (Sil-C4Im, Sil-C7Im, and Sil-C10Im) were prepared by modifying silica gel with three ionic liquid silane reagents differing in spacer alkyl chain lengths, which refers to the alkyl chain between the imidazolium and the sulfur atom. The preparation was proved through a range of characterization techniques, including elemental analysis (EA), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). The effects of chromatographic conditions, such as acetonitrile content, salt concentration, pH, and column temperature, were studied to explore the retention mechanism of three stationary phases, which indicates that three IL-stationary phases provide interactions with solutes in reverse-phase liquid chromatography (RPLC), hydrophilic interaction liquid chromatography (HILIC), and ion exchange chromatography (IEC). The column efficiency is 83,686 plates/m for aminobenzoic acid , and the column also has excellent repeatability of retention time with relative standard deviations (RSDs) between 0.24% and 0.34% ( n  = 12). A variety of analytes, including five nucleosides and nucleobases, six alkylbenzenes, two polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), and four inorganic anions, were separated well on three IL-functionalized stationary phases. It was found that the spacer alkyl chain length influenced selectivity by comparing the retention of the three IL-functionalized stationary phases.