Evaluation of a column classification method using the separation of alfuzosin from its related substances

The popularity and commercial availability of reversed-phase liquid chromatographic (RP-LC) stationary phases cause analysts to be often confronted with the problem of column selection. For this reason, general test methods to characterize RP-LC columns have been extensively studied since the 1970s. This paper focuses on correlating the column classification based on a method developed at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KUL method) with the selectivity obtained for a real separation. The analysis of alfuzosin hydrochloride and related compounds was carried out according to the method prescribed in the European Pharmacopoeia (Ph. Eur.) monograph. This separation was performed on 36 new RP-LC stationary phases which had been previously characterized chromatographically. For deeper comparative analysis of KUL classification of the stationary RP-LC brands and their column performance in pharmaceutical practice two chemometric tools, such as principal component analysis (PCA) and cluster analysis (CA), have been used. It was shown that stationary phase classes closely related by KUL method gave comparable separation for alfuzosin and related compounds. Therefore, the column ranking system based on the evaluation of F-values can be considered as a helpful tool in the selection of a suitable column for pharmaceutical analyses.