Retention Study of Flavonoids Under Different Chromatographic Modes

The goal of this study was to investigate the chromatographic behavior of selected flavonoids from their different subgroups (flavonols, flavanones, flavones and isoflavones) in hydrophilic interaction liquid chromatography (HILIC). Chromatographic measurements were made on two different HILIC columns: cross-linked DIOL (Luna HILIC) and zwitterionic sulfoalkylbetaine (SeQuant ZIC-HILIC). Separation parameters such as the content of acetonitrile and pH of an eluent were studied. On the ZIC column, the retention factors of flavonoids increased with decreasing water content in the mobile phase. The increase in pH of the aqueous component mainly affects the polarity of the analytes. DIOL stationary phase shows more or less apparent dual retention mechanism, HILIC at the acetonitrile (ACN) content ≥75% and reversed phase (RP) with lower content of organic modifier. In the presence of ammonium acetate in the mobile phase, the retention of flavonoids onto the DIOL column increases without change in the selectivity of the separations. The similar effect, but considerably smaller was observed for aglycones on the ZIC column. The retention of studied glycosides (hesperidin, rutin) decreases in the presence of salt in the mobile phase. The significantly higher mass spectrometry sensitivity was observed under HILIC conditions in comparison with the most often used RP LC due to much higher content of ACN in the mobile phase. Finally, under optimal chromatographic conditions, the method was validated and applied for the determination of flavonoids in chamomile (Matricaria chamomilla L.) infusion.