Green Chromatographic Separation of Coumarin and Vanillins Using Subcritical Water as the Mobile Phase

Pure water was used as the eluent for separation of coumarin, vanillin and ethyl vanillin at temperatures ranging from 100 to 200°C using a homemade subcritical water chromatography (SBWC) system. Chromatographic separations were performed on five commercial columns including XTerra MS C18, XBridge C18, Zorbax RRHD Eclipse Plus, Zorbax SB-Phenyl and Zorbax SB-C18 columns. The retention time of all three solutes decreased with increasing water temperature. The shortest retention time among all acceptable separations, less than 4 min, was achieved on the Zorbax SB-C18 column at 200°C. While separations on the XTerra MS C18 column resulted in fronting peaks and a degradation peak from ethyl vanillin on the Zorbax RRHD Eclipse Plus column was observed, all three other columns yielded reasonable separations under SBWC conditions. In addition to separation of the standard test mixture, separation of coumarin contained in a skincare cream sample was also carried out using SBWC.