STATISTICAL EVALUATION OF THE VALIDITY OF A METHOD FOR CHARACTERIZINGSTATIONARY PHASES FOR REVERSED-PHASE LIQUID-CHROMATOGRAPHY BASED ON RETENTION OF HOMOLOGOUS SERIES

The validity of a method for characterizing stationary phases for reve rsed-phase, liquid chromatography, based on the use of homologous seri es, has been evaluated. The method is based on a retention model which describes the dependence of the logarithm of the capacity factor on m obile phase composition and the carbon number of specific homologous s eries. A first-order as well as a second-order version of this model w as investigated. The second-order model proved to be a significant imp rovement on the first-order model, even for smaller mobile-phase range s. Nevertheless both models showed a significant lack of fit, reflecti ng the incompleteness of these models. Therefore, it is very questiona ble whether this method is suitable to describe HPLC-column characteri stics like hydrophobicity and hydrophylicity.