Professor Jon Parcher and his group at the University of Mississippi are supported by the Analytical and Surface Chemistry Program in the Chemistry Division to study fundamental aspects of reversed-phase liquid chromatography (RP-HPLC), the most common analytical separation technique in use today in analytical, pharmaceutical, environmental, synthetic, and drug-testing laboratories throughout the world. Despite this wide use, the exact mechanisms for the resolution of analytical solutes are not clearly known. The predictive capabilities of HPLC models are therefore severely limited. Prof. Parcher's research centers on the investigation and elucidation of the strong molecular interactions observed in both the stationary and mobile phases, addressing the observed complexity of the stationary phase and the experimental and theoretical problems involved in delineating or even defining the mobile and stationary phases within an RP-HPLC column.
The research will facilitate the design and development of improved materials, instruments, and experimental techniques for the separation and identification of a wide range of analytical samples. It involves the application of novel experimental techniques to the investigation of a long-standing problem, viz., the exact role of the stationary phase in RP-HPLC. Even small improvements in our understanding of the fundamental parameters controlling a technology used so extensively in a wide variety of laboratories could have a wide-spread impact in science. A potential peripheral benefit would be a reduction of the empiricism and Edisonian approach to methods development presently practiced in many analytical laboratories. Students participating in this work will receive excellent professional preparation in critically important research at the interface between physical and separations chemistry.
