A student researcher performed a chromatographic separation of caffeine and aspartame with methanol as the mobile phase using a $C_{18}$ column. The retention times for methanol ($t_M$), caffeine ($t_C$), and aspartame ($t_A$) were 36.0 s, 88.0 s, and 149.5 s, respectively.
What is the separation factor (relative retention), $\alpha$, for this column?
$\alpha$ =
Calculate the hypothetical retention times for caffeine and aspartame if their retention factors were reduced by 26.0%. Assume the mobile phase retention time ($t_M$ = 36.0 s) remains constant.
$t_C$ =
$t_A$ =
s
s