Predictive Optimization of the Separation of Phenylurea Pesticides using Ternary Mobile Phase Gradients in Reversed-Phase HPLC

Abstract

The method for optimization of ternary mobile phase gradients in HPLC developed earlier is illustrated on a practical example of reversed-phase separation of phenylurea pesticides. Predictive calculation methods were used to optimize subsequently “solvent strength”, “selectivity” and “combined solvent strength - selectivity” gradients. The merits of the three types of ternary gradients for this specific separation problem are discussed to elucidate the basic principles of the optimization strategy. The predicted retention data are compared with the experimental results and the limitations of the approach are shown. The present method makes it possible to reduce significantly the number of experiments and calculations necessary to perform the optimization in comparison to a systematic search of the optimized parametr space.