Retention behavior of resorcinarene-based cavitands on C8 and C18 stationary phases

The understanding of the retention behavior of large molecules is an area of interest in liquid chromatography. Resorcinarene-based cavitands are cavity-shaped cyclic oligomers that can create host-guest interactions. We have investigated the chromatographic behavior of two types of cyclic tetramers as analytes in high-performance liquid chromatography. The experiments were performed at four different temperatures (15, 25, 35, 45°C) on two types of reversed stationary phases (C8 and C18 ) from two different manufacturers. We have found a huge difference between the retention of resorcinarenes and cavitands. In some cases, the retention factor of cavitands was even a hundred times larger than the retention factor of resorcinarenes. The retention of methylated derivates was two to four times larger compared to that of demethylated compounds on every column. The opposite retention behavior of the resorcinarenes and cavitands on the two types of stationary phases showed well the difference of the selectivity of the XTerra and BDS Hypersil columns. The retention mechanism was studied by the thermodynamic parameters calculated from the van't Hoff equation.