A Study of π–π Interaction in High Performance Liquid Chromatography by Molecular Modeling

Abstract

Molecular mechanics (MM) and molecular dynamics (MD) were used to study the π–π interaction between polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) and pyrene bonded silica phase. There was a good correlation coefficient (r = 0.9330, P = 2.4 × 10⁻⁴) between the logarithmic retention time (ln T _r) of PAHs and −ΔG. However, there was no linearity between the retention time of substituted benzene or naphthalene compounds on pyrene bonded silica stationary phase and ΔG. Quantitative structure–retention relationship (QSRR) had been used to study the relationship of retention time and microstructure. However, by using QSRR for the substituted benzene or naphthalene derivatives, we obtained good correlation coefficient between retention time and microstructures (r ² = 0.962, F‐test = 104.198). The MM, MD, and QSAR are very useful methods to study the π–π interaction in chromatography.

Keywords:

• Molecular mechanics
• Molecular dynamics
• Quantitative structure–retention relationship
• PAH
• Substituted of benzene and naphthalene compounds
• Pyrene bonded stationary phase

Acknowledgment

This project was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of P.R. China (project no. 20303011).