A chemometric investigation of the selectivity of multisolvent mobile phase systems in RP-HPLC

The selectivity of multisolvent mobile phase systems consisting of water, methanol, acetonitrile and tetrahydrofuran was studied when the solvent strength decreases at a constant ratio of the modifiers. From the retention measurements of six benzene derivatives on an octylsilica column at eleven different mobile phase compositions the relation between the logarithm of the capacity factor of each solute and the mobile phase composition was modeled by a quadratic equation. From the models the capacity factors of the solutes were predicted for 3 binary, 3 ternary and 7 quaternary mobile phase systems when the fraction of water decreases and the ratio of the organic modifiers is kept constant for the tenary and quaternary solvent systems. The selectivity factors, alpha, of five pairs of solutes were calculated from the capacity factors and plotted against the solvent strength of the mobile phase systems. The selectivity remained not constant, but varied with the solvent strength: if the water fraction of a multi-solvent system is changed at a constant ratio of the modifiers, not only the solvent strength, but also the selectivity changes. The consequence of this result for optimization strategies is discussed.