PREDICTION OF LC RETENTION OF STEROIDS USING SOLVATOCHROMIC PARAMETERS

The proportion of organic modifier and pH of the hydroorganic mobile phase were optimized to separate a series of nine important steroids by LC. It has been shown that linear plots of log k' against Reichardt's E(N)(T) parameter for the mobile phase is observed over the whole range of compositions of practical importance. Data from these plots summarize an approach for optimization of resolution from only two retention measurements for each compound. pH is shown to be irrelevant. This behaviour could be extrapolated to other steroids and drastically reduce the number of retention values needed for mobile phase optimization for screening analysis of steroids in doping investigations.