Lipophilicity is one of the properties which influences the partition of a substance in biological media. The present study reports on the chromatographic behaviour of a newly synthesised series of furan derivatives by RP-HPLC and RP-TLC, with methanol-water and acetonitrile-water as mobile phases, in order to establish if the linear relationships between the retention parameters (log k, R-M) and the concentration of organic modifier in the mobile phase, phi, allows the extrapolation procedure. Good correlations between the retention parameters were obtained by RP-HPLC and RP-TLC, and the concentration of organic modifier (methanol, acetonitrile) in the mobile phase was established for the studied furan derivatives. However, for the discussed compounds, acetonitrile has a lower sensitivity to changes in the structures. A good correspondence was obtained between the extrapolated parameters for the methanol-water mobile phase when using RP-HPLC and RP-TLC. However, stronger interactions occur in RP-TLC between the compounds and the residual silanol groups than in RP-HPLC. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.