Gas chromatographic columns based on ionic liquids (ILs) are very promising since the selectivity of these columns can be tuned by both the cation and the anion chemical nature. In this paper, efficiencies of capillary columns based on four phosphonium ionic liquids were studied. The performance of seven columns containing the cation trihexyl(tetradecyl)phosphonium and the anions bromide, chloride, and bis(trifluoromethylsulfonyl)imide was evaluated by measuring the solute band broadening as a function of gas velocities at three temperatures. Hence, classical height equivalent to a theoretical plate (H) against gas velocity (u) plots corresponding to those columns were generated and the data were fitted to the Golay-Guiochon equation with the aim of seeking the optimum conditions to be operated each of them. Band broadening at practical gas velocities is mainly due to poor mass transfer properties of solutes in the (viscous) liquid phases, which limits the achieved efficiencies. These H/u plots proved to be necessary to characterize the column quality at a given temperature, to interpret the band broadening phenomena and thus, to establish the lower temperature limits and the expected plate counts at that temperature.
Keywords: Capillary GC; Golay-Guiochon plots; Solute diffusion in ionic liquids; Trihexyl(tetradecyl) phosphonium cation.
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