Separation performance of guanidinium-based ionic liquids as stationary phases for gas chromatography

Room temperature ionic liquids (RTILs) as stationary phases for gas chromatography (GC) have made great achievements in both research and applications over the last decades. Until now, all of the RTIL stationary phases reported have involved imidazolium, ammonium, pyrrolidinium, and phosphonium-based RTILs, and however, no publications are available using guanidinium-based ionic liquids (GBILs) as GC stationary phases except two preliminary reports from our group. In the present work, three hexaalkyl GBILs stationary phases, namely N, N,N′,N′-tetramethyl-N″, N″-dioctylguanidinum hexafluophosphate (DOTMG-PF₆), N,N,N′,N′-tetramethyl-N″, N″-dioctylguanidinium bis (trifluoromethylsulfonyl) imide (DOTMG-NTf₂), and N,N,N′,N′-tetraoctyl-N″, N″-dimethylguanidinium bis (trifluoromethylsulfonyl) imide (TODMG-NTf₂), were synthesized and used as stationary phases for GC separation after they were statically coated onto the inner walls of fused-silica capillary columns. The evaluation of DOTMG-PF₆ and TODMG-NTf₂ as GC stationary phases is reported here for the first time, whereas additional results on the DOTMG-NTf₂ stationary phase are added here on the basis of our previous report. In this work, McReynolds constants and Abraham solvation system constants are used to evaluate the average polarity and the solvation properties of the GBILs stationary phases for GC separation, respectively. The results show that the GBILs stationary phases exhibit medium polarity with an average polarity of 293–390, and that the major molecular interactions of the GBILs with analytes are dipole/polarizable interactions, H-bond basicity and dispersion forces, etc. After this, the separation performance and thermal stability of the GBILs stationary phases were evaluated, showing that these stationary phases achieve excellent separation for analytes of great variety covering hydrocarbons, alcohols, esters, aldehydes, ketones, amines, amides and aromatics, and exhibit different retention behaviors from the most widely used GC stationary phases such as polyethylene glycol (PEG-20M) and 5% phenyl–95% dimethylpolysiloxane (SE-54) in terms of resolution and elution order, and good thermal stability (at least up to 250°C). The present work demonstrates that the GBILs stationary phases possess excellent separation performance and thermal stability, and may be applicable as a new type of GC stationary phases for separation of complex samples.