Study of the influence of electronic effects on the retention of substitutedN-benzylideneanilines in normal-phase liquid chromatography

A series of 72 substitutedN-benzylideneanilines (NBA) has been studied by normal-phase liquid chromatography by use of an experimental design based on variation of the composition of mobile phases prepared from heptane and three modifiers, tetrahydrofuran, 1-octanol and ethyl acetate, for each of which the specific interactions are different. Seven mobile phases were defined in the experimental design. The chromatographic data obtained are used to discuss the behavior of NBA by application of complementary chemometric methods—hierarchical ascending classification (HAC) and correspondence factor analysis (CFA). Although solute polarity has the greatest effect on retention, construction of HAC and CFA plots shows that solute behavior is also influenced by second-order electronic effects arising as a result of specific interactions between the solutes and the different modifier solvents. A quantitative structure-retention relationship has been established between Hammett's constants and the solutes projection on the first factorial axis of CFA.