Investigation of the temperature dependence of water adsorption from aqueous acetonitrile on silica-based stationary phases in hydrophilic interaction liquid chromatography

Abstract

In the present work, the adsorption of water was investigated in aqueous normal-phase liquid chromatography on Cogent Silica C and Cogent Phenyl hydride stationary phases at different temperatures by frontal analysis – using coulometric Karl Fischer titration – to compare the temperature dependence of adsorption of water from aqueous acetonitrile. The Cogent Silica-C and Cogent Phenyl Hydride columns have a silicon hydride surface (silica hydride) with less than 2% free silanol group; therefore, they do not have a strong association with water. The adsorption behavior of water on the mentioned stationary phases was modeled by Langmuir isotherm. The preferentially adsorbed water was expressed in terms of a hypothetical monomolecular water layer equivalent in the inner pores. The uptake of water slightly depends on the temperature. The adsorbed water may fill four to eight percent of the pore volume over the studied temperature range, which approximately corresponds to the equivalent of 0.24–0.68 water layer coverage of the adsorbent surface. The phenyl hydride stationary phase shows decreased water uptake in comparison to the Silica C stationary phase.