Retention modeling in combined pH/organic solvent gradient reversed-phase HPLC.

An approach for retention modeling of double pH/organic solvent gradient data easily generated by automatically mixing two mobile phases with different pH and organic content according to a linear pump program is proposed. This approach is based on retention models arising from the evaluation of the retention data of a set of 17 OPA derivatives of amino acids obtained in 27 combined pH/organic solvent gradient runs performed between fixed initial pH/organic modifier values but different final ones and for different gradient duration. The derived general model is a ninth parameter equation easily manageable through a linear least-squares fitting but it requires eighteen initial pH/organic modifier gradient experiments for a satisfactory retention prediction in various double gradients of the same kind with those used in the fitting procedure. Two simplified versions of the general model, which were parameterized based on six only initial pH/organic modifier gradients, were also proposed, when one of the final double gradient conditions, pH or organic content was kept constant. The full and the simplified models allowed us to predict the experimental retention data in simultaneous pH/organic solvent double gradient mode very satisfactorily without the solution of the fundamental equation of gradient elution.