Chemometric characterization of the liphophilicity parameters of triketone herbicides and their degradation products

The aim of this work was to determine the correlations between retention factors of selected triketone herbicides (mesotrione MES, sulcotrione SUL, and tembotrione TEMB), their derivatives (AMBA, MNBA, CMBA, CHD, and TEMB MET), and their physicochemical properties as well as chemical structures. Moreover, the comparison of chromatographic lipophilicity scales by means of principal component analysis (PCA) and hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA) was conducted. All experiments were conducted using thin-layer chromatography (TLC). Acetonitrile and 0.1% formic acid in water, as well as the mixtures of the above-mentioned solvents in the ratios 30:70, 50:50, and 70:30 (v/v) were used as mobile phases. Silica gel modified with alkyl chains of different lengths (C-2, C-8, C-18) as well as hydroxyl (OH) and amine (NH2) groups were employed as stationary phases. HCA and PCA were employed to investigate the influence of chemical properties and structures of triketones and their derivatives on chromatographic separations. The chemometric analysis applied in this study enables classification of the chemical and structural properties of the investigated compounds using solely information from thin-layer chromatography.