High-performance liquid chromatography of substituted p-benzoquinones and p-hydroquinones. II. Retention behavior, quantitative structure-retention relationships and octanol-water partition coefficients.

The retention behavior of methoxy-substituted p-benzoquinones and the corresponding hydroquinones in reversed-phase chromatography was examined on octylsilica and two octadecylsilica stationary phases and with five hydroorganic mobile phases containing acetonitrile, methanol or tetrahydrofuran and additionally in most cases (NH3OH)3PO4 used as a reducing and buffering agent. The retention order of benzoquinones and hydroquinones was the same on each stationary phase with either methanol or acetonitrile as the organic modifier. On the other hand, minor differences in the retention order were observed with the various stationary phases. In all cases, satisfactory quantitative structure-retention relationships (QSRRs) were found and the data suggest that the differences in the retention behaviour of octadecylsilicas used in this study are silanophilic interactions which, together with solvophobic interaction contribute to the retention of these eluites. Further analysis showed that QSRRs of sterically crowded molecules must take into account reduced surface area available for binding. The retention data obtained with use of aqueous tetrahydrofuran as mobile phase failed to give rise to satisfactory QSRRs. This was attributed to selective solvation of eluite by tetrahydrofuran and/or nearly equipotent binding of eluite and tetrahydrofuran to stationary phase.