Retention characteristics of some antibiotic and anti-retroviral compounds in hydrophilic interaction chromatography using isocratic elution, and gradient elution with repeatable partial equilibration.

The separation of some zwitterionic, basic and neutral antibiotic and antiretroviral compounds was studied using hydrophilic interaction chromatography (HILIC) on bare silica, bonded amide and urea superficially porous phases. The differences in the selectivity and retentivity of these stationary phases were evaluated for compounds with widely different physicochemical properties (logD -3.43 to 2.41 at pH 3.0). The mobile phase was acetonitrile-ammonium formate buffered at low pH. Compounds containing quinolone and serine groups showed poor peak shapes on all columns, attributed to metal-oxide interactions with system metals. Peak shapes were improved by addition of citrate buffers. Gradient elution, particularly with regard to column equilibration, was also studied due to the large differences in retention factors observed under isocratic conditions. Full equilibration in HILIC was slow for both ionogenic and neutral solutes, requiring as much as ∼40 column volumes. However, highly repeatable partial equilibration, suitable for gradient elution, was achieved in only a few minutes. Pronounced selectivity differences in the separations were shown dependent on the partial equilibration time.