Microemulsion electrokinetic chromatography as a suitable tool for lipophilicity determination of acidic, neutral, and basic compounds

In the present work, several MEEKC systems are studied to assess their suitability for lipophilicity determination of acidic, neutral, and basic compounds. Thus, several microemulsion compositions over a wide range of pH values (from 2.0 to 12.0), containing heptane, 1−butanol and different types and amounts of surfactant (SDS or sodium cholate: from 1.3 to 3.3%) are characterized using Abraham's solvation model. The addition of acetonitrile (up to 10%) is also studied, since it increases the resolution of the technique for the most lipophilic compounds. The system coefficients obtained are very similar to those of the 1−octanol/water, used as the reference lipophilicity index, allowing simple and linear correlations between the 1−octanol/water partition values (log P o/w ) and MEEKC mass distribution ratios (log k MEEKC ). Variations in the microemulsion composition (aqueous buffer, surfactant, concentration of ACN) did not significantly affect the similarity of the MEEKC systems to log P o/w partition.