This paper proposes the use of novel surfactant additives for the separation of organic acids by ion-pair chromatography and studies the influences of surfactants on the chromatographic separation behaviors.Researches have been carried out on both silica gel matrix and polymer supporters in order to compare the two ordinary kinds of stationary phases,and the phenomenon is similar.Separation is based on differences in the stabilities of analyte-additive complexes in solution.Retention times of analytes can be varied over a large range by varying the additive concentration.The results indicate that the additives of proper concentrations can reduce the retention times of different organic acids while the resolution remains the same.The larger the molecular weight is,the greater the shift of the retention time is.This greatly expands the scope of macromolecular polar compounds that can be separated by ion-pair chromatography with the advantages of retention times being greatly reduced.