A comparison of frontal and nonfrontal methods for determining solid-liquid adsorption isotherms using inverse liquid chromatography.

Inverse liquid chromatography (ILC) has been used to determine experimental isotherms for the equilibrium adsorption of cyclohexanone onto a silica (61.8 m(2)/g) from hexane using the peak maximum (PM), elution by characteristic point (ECP), frontal analysis (FA), and frontal analysis by characteristic point (FACP) methods. Isotherms obtained using these four approaches gave good internal agreement, as well as being in good agreement with classically determined isotherms. Columns were successfully packed using a dry powder packing method with 9 microm diameter silica particles, and excellent intercolumn and instrument to instrument reproducibility was obtained for PM isotherms. The theoretical background to the PM, ECP, FA, and FACP methods, as well as the practical facets of isotherm determination using these methods, is outlined in this work.