Fluorescence imaging of the desorption of dye from fused silica versus silica gel.

Abstract

The desorption rate constants for a cationic dye from strong adsorption sites are compared for the same chromatographic interface but for two different substrates, fused silica and chromatographic silica gel. The dye is 1,1'-didodecyl-3,3,3'3'-tetramethylindocarbocyanine perchlorate (DiI). The interface consists of acetonitrile and a hydrocarbon monolayer (C8) covalently bound to the silica substrate. To measure slow desorption from fused silica, fluorescence imaging combined with correlation spectroscopy is used. To measure slow desorption from silica gel, fluorescence movies of silica gel particles are used. In both cases, the results show that there are two types of slow desorption processes on time scales exceeding 1 s. The desorption time from one type of site is within an experimental error of 7 s for both silica substrates. The adsorption kinetics for this type of site are slow, and the equilibrium population of DiI on these sites is comparable to that for DiI weakly adsorbed to the hydrocarbon monolayer. For the second type of site, for fused silica, the population of DiI is even higher than that of weakly adsorbed DiI, and the desorption time constant is approximately 2 min, although this is likely shortened by photobleaching. For silica gel, the relative population of DiI on this ultrastrong site is more than an order of magnitude lower, and the desorption time constant is 4.0 +/- 0.1 min. Both silica substrates thus show two types of sites whose time constants agree within experimental error, suggesting that the strong adsorption sites on fused silica are chemically the same as those on chromatographic silica gel.