Abstract
All formal oxidation products of alkylthioethers (alkyl sulfides) from alkanesulfenic acid ester through dialkylsulfate have been investigated via HPLC at an ODS phase. The possible bond states of oxygen-sulfur, >S[dbnd]O and R-O-S, produce different retention effects. The former reduces retention strongly, the latter only little. In sulfoxides and sulfones, insertion of O between R and S leads to a pronounced retention increase. The observed retention changes can be coarsely related to solute dipole moments. The correlation between retention and solute size is good for different terminal groups R.