Temperature selectivity in reversed-phase high performance liquid chromatography

Column temperature plays two important roles in reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography (RP-HPLC): control of retention (k) and control of selectivity (a). While changes in retention as a function of temperature are ubiquitous, selectivity changes for any given solute pair are more pronounced for ionized samples and samples with more polar substituents. With many samples, column temperature can be selected in a manner that optimizes resolution. The selectivity effects observed for temperature changes in RP-HPLC generally are complementary to those observed for mobile phase strength changes, so it is often possible to improve resolution by simultaneous optimization of temperature and mobile phase percent organic or gradient steepness. Computer simulation is a powerful tool for such optimization experiments. This paper reviews the influence of temperature on chromatographic selectivity for RP-HPLC.