Optimize the Separation of Fluorinated Amphiles Using High-Performance Liquid Chromatography.

Using the set of fluorinated amphiles that contain the same fluorocarbon moiety but differ in their fluorine content percentage F% (25-45%), the optimal condition for a F%-based separation of these analytes using reverse-phase chromatography was explored. It is found that optimal separation can be achieved by pairing a regular reverse-phase column (such as C8) with a fluorinated eluent (such as trifluoroethanol). Separation is further improved at higher chromatographic temperature with baseline separation achieved at 45°C. This result indicates that the separation of fluorocarbon-tagged molecules can be based on the fluorine content percentage rather than the number of fluorine atoms.