Improvements in Polymer Characterization by Size-Exclusion Chromatography and Liquid Chromatography at the Critical Condition by Using Enhanced-Fluidity Liquid Mobile Phases with Packed Capillary Columns

Separation of copolymers using high-performance liquid chromatography with polymeric stationary phase and liquefied carbon dioxide as adsorption promoting solvent

Chromatographic separation of copolymers depending on the chemical composition was studied by a solvent gradient method using liquefied carbon dioxide (CO2) as an adsorption promoting solvent. As the high polar stationary phase, non-bonded silica gel, crosslinked acrylamide (AA) gel and crosslinked acrylonitrile (AN) gel were utilized. All columns showed the typical normal phase type of adsorption. Polymeric stationary phases showed the higher sample recovery for styrene-methyl methacrylate (St-MMAs) copolymers, indicating suitability for quantitative analyses. The separations of butyl methacrylate (BMA)-methyl methacrylate, and 2,2,3,3,4,4,4-heptafluorobutyl methacrylate (FBMA)-methy methacrylate copolymers were also carried out, and the latter copolymers were separated based on the CO2-philicity with acrylonitrile column.

Physicochemical properties of enhanced-fluidity liquid solvents

Enhanced fluidity (EF) liquid mixtures are advantageous as mobile phases for the separation of moderate to polar compounds in liquid chromatography (reversed-phase, normal, size exclusion, size exclusion, and chiral separations). The low viscosities and high diffusivities of EF mixtures allow highly efficient separations to be achieved in a small amount of time. The best use of enhanced-fluidity liquids is only possible when their physicochemical properties are known. Herein, the techniques used to measure the physicochemical properties (phase diagram, diffusivity, solvent strength and pH) of EF liquids are described. For each technique, the experiment design and the care necessary to insure the quality of the collected data are described. Finally, the impact of the measured physicochemical properties on the chromatography is also highlighted.

Chemical compositional separation of styrene-methyl methacrylate copolymers using high-performance liquid chromatography with liquefied carbon dioxide as eluent

Chromatographic separation of styrene-methyl methacrylate (MMA) copolymers depending on the chemical composition was studied using liquefied carbon dioxide as an adsorption promoting solvent, and tetrahydrofuran, chloroform containing ethanol as a desorption promoting solvent in the mobile phase and the column packed non-bonded silica gel by a solvent gradient method. With the increase of MMA content, the elution was retarded indicating that the typical normal-phase type of adsorption occurred. The effects of type of desorption solvents, molecular mass of sample, and column temperature on the elution were investigated.

Characterization of low molecular weight alkoxylated polymers using long column SFC/MS and an image analysis based quantitation approach

The utility of low viscosity mobile phases and long chromatographic columns for complex polymer analysis is demonstrated. We use long column supercritical fluid chromatography/mass spectrometry (SFC/MS) with electrospray ionization (ESI) to characterize a variety of complex, low molecular weight polymers. When quantitative analysis is desired, the resulting three-dimensional (time, intensity, and mass-to-charge ratio [m/z]) data are converted to images. Custom image analysis software is used to detect and integrate peaks in arbitrarily defined regions of the time-m/z map. These integrated peak volumes can be used to quantitate distinct component classes of the polymer mixtures.

Recent developments in microcolumn liquid chromatography

An overview of the most recent developments in microcolumn liquid chromatography (LC) is presented. A short theoretical discussion on chromatographic dilution and extracolumn bandbroadening is given and also the recent progress and advances in column technology and instrumentation are reviewed. However, the emphasis of this review is on miniaturized sample clean-up, sample introduction techniques and on both established and more recent detection techniques for microcolumn LC. The hyphenation of miniaturized LC columns with other techniques, specifically on multidimensional chromatography and the coupling of microcolumn LC to mass spectrometry is discussed in detail. Both the on-line and automated off-line interfacing to other separation and detection techniques will also be addressed. Finally, a number of typical microcolumn LC applications are presented in order to demonstrate the potential of microcolumn LC methods in a variety of scientific areas.