N-acetylcysteine-functionalised a multimodal HPLC stationary phase for broad-range separations

Area of Science:

• Analytical Chemistry
• Chromatography

Background:

• Designing HPLC stationary phases requires facile synthesis and broad applicability.
• Existing phases may lack versatility across diverse analyte classes and polarity ranges.

Purpose of the Study:

• To synthesize and evaluate a new multimodal HPLC stationary phase derived from N-acetyl-l-cysteine.
• To assess its performance across a broad polarity spectrum for diverse analytes.

Main Methods:

• Single-step immobilization of N-acetyl-l-cysteine onto silica.
• Comprehensive chromatographic evaluation using reversed-phase and HILIC conditions.
• Analysis of various analytes including nucleobases, nucleosides, alkyl benzenes, PAHs, dyes, anilines, benzoic acids, plant growth regulators, sulfonamides, and herbicides.

Main Results:

• The N-acetyl-l-cysteine stationary phase demonstrated multimodal selectivity, supporting both reversed-phase and HILIC-like retention.
• Successfully resolved highly polar compounds (nucleobases, nucleosides) under HILIC conditions.
• Efficiently separated hydrophobic compounds (alkyl benzenes, PAHs, dyes, anilines, benzoic acids) and complex mixtures (plant growth regulators, sulfonamides, herbicides) in reversed-phase mode.

Conclusions:

• The synthesized N-acetyl-l-cysteine stationary phase is cost-effective and exhibits broad analytical utility.
• Its molecular architecture enables a balanced interaction profile for separating analytes with diverse polarities.
• This multimodal phase offers high separation performance across a wide range of chemical and biological applications.