Effect of Functionalized Stationary Phases on the Mechanism of Retention of Fungicides in RP-LC Elution

The objectives of this study were to investigate the molecular mechanisms of retention of selected fungicides and to classify stationary phases used for RP-HPLC. Chromatographic measurements were made using eight physicochemically diverse HPLC columns which were evaluated for analysis of nine biologically active compounds (strobilurins and triazoles). QSRRs were derived for the logarithms of the retention factors normalized to a hypothetical zero percent organic modifier in the mobile phase, log kW. Structural descriptors of the pesticides were used to describe their chromatographic retention behaviour under the given LC conditions. The next step was the correlation between retention data, log kW, and the structural descriptors of the analytes from molecular modelling.