I am working on a separation for steroids where one of the steroids has a hydroxy group sulfonated, existing as the sodium salt.
After quite a few different columns and buffer systems, I have found that phosphate buffer at pH=3.5 (I believe the sulfonate is protonated at this pH) in a gradient elution with acetonitrile gives a good separation and the best tailing factor (~1.5).
The nonsulfonated peaks are sharp, with good tailing, while the sulfonate peakwidth is mediocre at best.
A: Is there a good column or elution system for these compounds?
B: Is there a general relationship between peakwidth and the possibility of unacceptable tailing?
Thanks in advance.

We have done sulfonate salts such as fluorescent whitening agents and dye compounds by HPLC. We have used 0.01 M perchlorate in water, brought to pH 3 with perchloric acid mixed with acetonitrile for this on C18 columns. Another way was to dissolve 8 g ammonium phosphate dibasic in 1200 ml HPLC grade water. Add 250 ml methanol and 550 ml acetonitrile; mix thoroughly and filter, use with C18 column.

Thanks for the info. What kind of peak shape did you get?
Anyone else have any input on this?

The "optimized" system I mention above is 20mM ammonium phosphate. 8g/1200ml is about 58mM. I'll try it, probably the perchlorate too.
It is interesting to note that potassium phosphate gave lousy results as far as peak tailing of the sulfonate goes. The other peaks showed little or no difference.

I'm "Anonymous" above; I got nice peak shapes.