Advances and Recent Trends in the Field of Monolithic Columns for Chromatography

Assessing structural correlations and heterogeneity length scales in functional porous polymers from physical reconstructions

A general, model-free, quantitative approach to the key morphological properties of a porous polymer monolith is presented. After 3D reconstruction, image-based analysis delivers detailed spatial and spatially correlated information on the structural heterogeneities in the void space and the polymer skeleton. Identified heterogeneities, which limit the monolith's performance in targeted applications, are traced back to the preparation process.

Enantioseparation of basic chiral drugs on a carbamoylated erythromycin-zirconia hybrid monolith using capillary electrochromatography

An organic-inorganic hybrid monolithic column was prepared within the confines of a capillary via a single-step in situ sol-gel approach using zirconium tetrabutoxide as a precursor to compose the inorganic backbone and 3-triethoxysilylpropyl carbamoylated derivative of erythromycin (TEOSPC-ERY) as a co-precursor to introduce the organic chiral selector moiety in the zirconia backbone. The resulting carbamoylated ERY-zirconia hybrid monolith (ERY-ZHM) showed homogeneous morphology with well-defined through pores and was tightly connected with the inner wall of the capillary. The column was employed for capillary electrochromatographic enantioseparation of six basic chiral drugs in mobile phases (MPs) consisting of acetonitrile (ACN) and triethylammonium acetate (TEAA) buffer. The effects of composition of MP and applied voltage on chiral separation were investigated by using propranolol as a representative analyte. The highest resolution (Rs=3.33) was obtained with a MP consisting of 10/90 (v/v) ACN/TEAA buffer (10mM, pH 7), 10 kV applied voltage and 25°C capillary temperature. The relative standard deviations for resolution values regarding run to run, day to day, column to column and batch to batch repeatability were 0.41%, 0.89%, 1.80% and 2.26% (for n=3), respectively, indicating satisfactory stability of columns and reproducibility of column preparation process.

Determination of imidazole derivatives by micellar electrokinetic chromatography combined with solid-phase microextraction using activated carbon-polymer monolith as adsorbent

In this study, an effective method for the separation of imidazole derivatives 2-methylimidazole (2-MEI), 4- methylimidazole (4-MEI) and 2-acetyl-4-tetrahydroxybutylimidazole (THI) in caramel colors using cation-selective exhaustive injection and sweeping micellar electrokinetic chromatography (CSEI-sweeping-MEKC) was developed. The limits of detection (LOD) and quantitation (LOQ) for the CSEI-sweeping-MEKC method were in the range of 4.3-80μgL(-1) and 14-270μgL(-1), respectively. Meanwhile, a rapid fabrication activated carbon-polymer (AC-polymer) monolithic column as adsorbent for solid-phase microextraction (SPME) of imidazole colors was developed. Under the optimized SPME condition, the extraction recoveries for intra-day, inter-day and column-to-column were in the range of 84.5-95.1% (<6.3% RSDs), 85.6-96.1% (<4.9% RSDs), and 81.3-96.1% (<7.1% RSDs), respectively. The LODs and LOQs of AC-polymer monolithic column combined with CSEI-sweeping-MEKC method were in the range of 33.4-60.4μgL(-1) and 111.7-201.2μgL(-1), respectively. The use of AC-polymer as SPME adsorbent demonstrated the reduction of matrix effect in food samples such as soft drink and alcoholic beverage thereby benefiting successful determination of trace-level caramel colors residues using CSEI-sweeping-MEKC method. The developed AC-polymer monolithic column can be reused for more than 30 times without any significant loss in the extraction recovery for imidazole derivatives.

Cardiovascular drug determination in bioanalysis: an update

The great impact of cardiovascular diseases in human health has led to the development of a huge number of drugs and therapies to improve the treatment of these diseases. Cardiovascular drug analysis in biological fluids constitutes an important challenge for analytical scientists. There is a clear need for reliable methods to carry out both qualitative and quantitative analysis in a short time of analysis. Different problems such as drug monitoring, analysis of metabolites, study of drugs interactions, drugs residues or degradation products, chiral separation, and screening and confirmation of drugs of abuse in doping control must be solved. New trends in sample preparation, instrumental and column technology advances in LC and innovations in MS are described in this work.

Preparation and characterization of macroporous monoliths imprinted with erythromycin

The synthesis of macroporous molecularly imprinted monoliths was performed using the monomers system 2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate-ethylene glycol dimethacrylate and erythromycin as a template. The copolymerization was carried out in situ inside 50 mm × 4.6 mm i.d. stainless-steel tubing. The morphology of the monoliths was examined with scanning electron microscopy. The porous characteristics were determined both from the data of hydrodynamic permeability of monoliths and by means of mercury intrusion porosimetry. The retention parameters of target substance (erythromycin), values of calculated imprinting factors and apparent dynamic dissociation constants were obtained for monoliths prepared with the application of different amount of template (4, 8 and 12 mol%). The separations of the mixtures azithromycin/erythromycin and ciprofloxacin/erythromycin were demonstrated. Additionally, the possibility of erythromycin quantification in human blood plasma was shown.