Salting-out and salting-in effects in the reversed-phase thin-layer chromatography of dansylated amino acids: Effect of acids

The retention of 15 dansylated amino acid derivatives was determined in aqueous solutions of formic, acetic, propionic and perchloric acid in reversed-phase thin-layer chromatography. The acids increased the retention of each derivatives at the low concentration range. This effect has been tentatively explained by the suppression of dissociation of polar groups in the solute molecules resulting in increased apparent lipophilicity (salting-out phenomenon). The higher concentrations of acid solutions decreased the retention (salting-in effect), the undissociated acid molecules probably act as an organic mobile phase. Both salting-in and salting-out phenomena can be simultaneously described by bilinear function. The polarity parameters of the amino acids, their hydrophobicity and the strength of the acid in the eluent simultaneously influence the retention.