Separation of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons with a C60 bonded silica phase in microcolumn liquid chromatography

Abstract A chemically bonded C60 silica phase was synthesized as a stationary phase for liquid chromatography (LC) and its retention behavior evaluated for various polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) using microcolumn LC. The results indicate that the C60 bonded phase offers selectivity different from that of octadecylsilica (ODS) bonded phases in the separation of isomeric PAHs. With the C60 phase, PAH molecules having a partial structure similar to that of the C60 molecule, e.g. triphenylene and perylene, were retained longer than with ordinary ODS stationary phases. The results also show that good correlation exists between the retention data with this C60 bonded phase and with C60 itself as the stationary phase.