Comparative study of chromatography on thin layers impregnated with organic stationary phases. Chromatographic separation of nitrophenols.

The chromatographic behaviour of nitrophenols on thin layers of silica gel and cellulose was compared, both without impregnation and impregnated with non-aqueous polar stationary phases (formamide, dimethylformamide) and less polar stationary phases (liquid paraffin, octan-1-ol, 1-bromonaphthalene). Cellulose is preferred when using formamide or dimethylformamide if a pure partition process is required. For each particular analyte a certain amount of the stationary phase is always required to suppress the adsorption activity of silica gel. Separation by reversed-phase thin-layer chromatography is strongly affected by the type of stationary phase (the possibility of forming charge-transfer complexes with 1-bromonaphthalene) and its support (the acidic properties of silica gel and its adsorption activity), the mobile phase (content of organic modifier, pH, presence of salts) and the properties of the solutes (polarity, ionizability).