Marked differences between acetonitrile/water and methanol/water mobile phase systems on the thermodynamic behavior of benzodiazepines in reversed phase liquid chromatography

Summary

Two different methods were used to determine the separation factor α at different temperatures and the Gibbs-Helmholtz parameters (Δ(ΔH), Δ(ΔS)) of two adjacent benzodiazepines on a chromatogram were obtained from plots of lnα versus 1/T. We first studied each factor (fraction of water ϕ in the ACN/water mixture and column temperatureT), which controls the retention mechanism, and then we examined the simultaneous variation of all these factors. The changes in Δ(ΔH) and Δ(ΔS) in relation to a volume fraction of water ϕ in an ACN/water mixture were examined. In the ACN/water system, Δ(ΔH) was fairly constant in the acetonitrile region of ϕ≤0.52 and appears to be a roughly linear function of ϕ for ϕ≥0.52. In this system Δ(ΔS) is approximately a parabolic function of ϕ with an optimum at ϕ≊0.52. The retention mechanism of ten benzodiazepines was found to be significantly different in the methanol/water and ACN/water mixtures. The separation optimization of these ten benzodiazepines was then considered. A fraction of water of 0.43 in the ACN/water mixture and a column temperature of 44 °C gave the most efficient separation conditions in the ACN/water mixture.