Can I use an ACQUITY UPLC HSS C18 SB column to analyze fat-soluble vitamins? - WKB125079

ENVIRONMENT

• UltraPerformance Liquid Chromatography (UPLC)
• High strength silica (HSS)
• Selectivity for bases (SB)
• ACQUITY UPLC HSS C18 SB

ANSWER

It might be possible.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Waters has not published any methods for the analysis of fat-soluble vitamins on any of the HSS C18 SB packings.

Fat-soluble vitamins may be very retentive on C18 packings, which might make it difficult to elute them from C18 packings, in general.

The HSS C18 SB packing exhibits an non-endcapped stationary phase, which means there are many residual silanol groups. The groups become negatively charged as pH rises above ~3.0.  If these silanol groups become predominantly negatively charged, this may allow the nonpolar analytes to elute a little easier, because the particle surface in between the C18 ligands will be more polar (and this may somewhat repel nonpolar species). If a particular fat-soluble vitamin has any amine groups that are positively charged in the pH of your mobile phase, they may be attracted to the negative surface silanols through cation exchange. This can lead to tailing.