Hydrophilic interaction chromatography (or hydrophilic interaction liquid chromatography, HILIC) is a variant of normal phase liquid chromatography  that partly overlaps with other chromatographic applications such as ion chromatography  and reversed phase liquid chromatography. HILIC uses hydrophilic stationary phases with reversed-phase type eluents. The name was suggested by Andrew Alpert in his 1990 paper on the subject.  He described the chromatographic mechanism for it as liquid-liquid partition chromatography where analytes elute in order of increasing polarity, a conclusion supported by a review and re-evaluation of published data.