Hydrophilic Interaction Liquid Chromatography (HILIC)mode
As a complimentary tool to Reverse phase chromatography.
P. Raja abhilash, P.Sowmya*, Y.Rajeshwar.
S.R.College of Pharmacy, Ananthasagar.
Separation science called chromatography is the blood line topic from the past century.Reverse
phase chromatography (RPC) is usually first choice for the method developers to separate the
polar, non-polar and neutral compounds. Highly polar compounds (less hydrophobic) have less
retentionand no separation with RPC which leads to the discovery of ion-pair chromatography.
Ion-pair chromatography is modification of reverse phase chromatography, to retain polar
compound in stationary phase and for better separation through by the addition of ion-pair
reagent in the mobile phase. The column will have a nature of both ion-exchange and reverse
phase characteristics. The complexity of ion-pair reagents restricts the prediction of polar
compounds in their polarity order and also reserves the column usage for the specific analysis.
This leads to the traditional science of separation of polar hydrophilic compounds one step ahead
by having a polar compound retaining stationary phase with “silica embedded with polar
functional groups”. The complexity of the ion pair is minimized with better separation and
called as “Hydrophilic Interaction Liquid chromatography”-“The HILIC” mode as a
complimentary tool to RPC.HILIC is a variation of normal-phase chromatography with the
added advantage that organic solvents that are miscible in water can be used. It uses polar
materials, suchas amino, cyano, diol, and silanol, as its stationary phase and, thus, is sometimes
referred to as “reverse reversed-phase” or “aqueous normal phase” chromatography. The current
presentation describes the introduction, advantages and applications of HILIC.
Key words: Hydrophilic, liquid chromatography, ion chromatography, reverse phase chromatography.