Separation of steroidal drugs on porous graphitized carbon column.

The retention time of 11 steroidal drugs was determined on a porous graphitized carbon (PGC) column using water tetrahydrofuran mixtures as eluents. Linear correlations were calculated between the logarithm of the capacity factor (k') and the tetrahydrofuran concentration in the eluent. To find the molecular parameters significantly influencing the retention the intercept and slope values of the above relationship were correlated with the physicochemical characteristics of steroidal drugs using principal component analysis (PCA). Both the slope and intercept values show high differences proving that steroidal drugs can be successfully separated on a PGC column. Five principal components explained > 90% of the total variance. Calculations indicated that both electrostatic interactions and sterical conditions can influence the retention of steroidal drugs on PGC column.