Polar contributions of the stationary phase to the reversed-phase ion-pair high-performance liquid chromatographic separation of quaternary ammonium drugs.

The chromatographic reproducibility of a methodology, developed for the separation and determination of quaternary ammonium drugs by reversed-phase ion-pair column liquid chromatography, was studied. The results in terms of retention dependence on the residual silanol content of the octadecyl stationary phase and column aging were compared with those obtained with conventional separation techniques. By on-column silylation with N-trimethylsilylimidazole, it was demonstrated that eluents containing both amines and alkanesulphonates, beside a higher resolving power, provide reproducible separations which are far less dependent on the residual and generated silanol groups compared to those obtained with eluents containing only an organic amine.