High-pressure liquid chromatography of drugs. II. An evaluation of a microparticulate cation-exchange column.

A microparticulate cation-exchange column has been evaluated for the chromatography of thirty compounds selected as representative of a wide variety of drug substances. Although the column exhibited a strong partition effect besides the expected ion-exchange mechanism, the retention of drugs could be predictably influenced by variation of the eluent ionic strength and organic solvent content. For acidic drugs the column showed little selectivity (although a salting-out effect increased retention at high eluent ionic strengths), but for basic substances Partisil SCX may afford a useful separative medium offering reasonable chromatographic efficiency (HETP is approximately 0.1 mm). The column longevity, however, is at present questionable.