Comparison of chaotropic salt and ionic liquid as mobile phase additives in reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography of biogenic amines

Highly hydrophilic compounds belonging to biogenic amines were analysed in the reversed-phase system, modified with the addition of ionic liquids: 1-ethyl-3-methyl-imidazolium hexafluorophosphate (EMIM PF6) and chaotropic salt NaPF6 on Discovery HS C18 column at acidic conditions. The effect of the additives concentration and the presence of organic solvent on the analytes' chromatographic parameters such as retention factor, tailing factor and theoretical plates number were all determined. On the basis of k versus ionic liquid concentration in aqueous-organic mobile phase with constant amount of phosphate buffer, retention mechanism was studied. It was established that the presence of organic solvent with low dielectric constant and ionic liquid with both chaotropic ions allows achieving typical Langmuir shape of this relationship. Investigated mobile phase additives are comparable according to efficiency and selectivity towards biogenic amines analysis. However, the sensitivity was found to be better for the eluent system modified with chaotropic salt.