Oxidative cleavage of carbon-silicon bond as a new method to characterize bonded stationary phases on silica gel

A method to cleave stationary phases from silica gel asa stable and easily characterizable compound under mild conditions was developed. The method is based on the oxidative cleavage of the silicon-carbon bond with hydrogen peroxide and potassium fluoride. It was applied successfully to the chemical characterization of the three common C18 silica gel stationary phases. This method was also applied successfully to the determination of the enantiomeric purity of a chiral stationary phase.