Liquid chromatography of synthetic polymers under critical conditions of enthalpic interactions 4: Sample recovery

Reduced sample recovery is a frequent feature of LC of macromolecules under critical conditions of enthalpic interactions (LC CC). Several methods of assessment of LC CC sample recovery are compared. A novel approach is based on an online combination of the. The LC CC column with a noninteractive SEC column. It provides not only the amount but also the molar mass of the eluted/withheld polymer. The procedure was tested with poly(methyl methacrylate), bare silica gel column packings, and “critical eluent” tetrahydrofuran/toluene. It was shown that macromolecules with higher molar masses were preferentially trapped within the LC CC column packing so that the eluted part of the sample was no longer representative. The incomplete polymer elution can make the LC CC polymer analyses susceptible to significant experimental errors.     

Liquid chromatography under limiting conditions of desorption 6: Separation of a four‐component polymer blend

Baseline separation was achieved of a model four‐component polymer blend of polystyrene‐poly(methyl methacrylate)‐poly(ethylene oxide)‐poly(2‐vinyl pyridine) in a single chromatographic run with help of the unconventional method of liquid chromatography under limiting conditions of desorption. Narrow barriers of liquids were employed, which selectively decelerated elution of particular kinds of macromolecules. Bare silica gel was the column packing, and the eluent was a mixture of dimethylformamide/tetrahydrofuran/toluene 30:50:20 w/w/w. Barrier compositions were neat toluene, B#1, neat tetrahydrofuran, B#2, and dimethylformamide/tetrahydrofuran/toluene 15:55:30, B#3. Minor blend constituents (∼1%) could be identified, as well. The result represents a step toward the separation and molecular characterization of triblock‐copolymers, many of which are expected to contain besides both parent homopolymers also the diblock chains and thus they are in fact four‐component polymer blends.     

Liquid chromatography of polymers under limiting conditions of adsorption: III. Role of experimental variables

LC of polymers under limiting conditions of adsorption (LC LCA) is a novel method based on different mobility of (pore excluded) macromolecules compared to (pore permeating) solvent molecules. Polymer sample is injected in a solvent preventing its adsorption within the column. Eluent promotes sample adsorption. Under these conditions, macromolecules cannot leave its initial solvent and elute from the column independently of their molar mass. In contrast, a less interactive simultaneously injected polymer leaves its initial solvent zone and is eluted in the size exclusion mode. As a result, chemically different polymer species can be discriminated. The effect of selected experimental conditions was studied on the LC LCA behavior of poly(methyl methacrylate)s eluted from bare silica gel columns. The parameters were packing pore diameter, injected sample volume and concentration, as well as column temperature. The size independent elution was only little affected by the above parameters and LC LCA produced well-focused peaks. The LC LCA mechanism was operative even at a very large sample of both volume and concentration. This makes LC LCA a robust and user-friendly method, likely suitable also for characterization of minor components of polymer mixtures.     

Separation of polyethylene glycols and maleimide‐terminated polyethylene glycols by reversed‐phase liquid chromatography under critical conditions

The separation of polyethylene glycols and maleimide‐substituted polyethylene glycol derivatives based on the number of maleimide end‐groups under critical liquid chromatography conditions has been investigated on a reversed‐phase column. The critical solvent compositions for nonfunctional polyethylene glycols and bifunctional maleimide‐substituted polyethylene glycols were determined to be identical at about 40% acetonitrile in water on a reversed‐phase octadecyl carbon chain‐bonded silica column using mixtures of acetonitrile and water of varying composition as the mobile phase at 25°C. The maleimide‐functionalized polyethylene glycols were successfully separated according to maleimide functionality (with zero, one, two, or three maleimide end‐groups, respectively) under the critical isocratic elution conditions without obvious effect of molar mass. The separation was mainly due to the hydrophobic interaction between the maleimide end‐groups and the column packing. Off‐line matrix‐assisted laser desorption/ionization time of flight mass spectrometry was used to identify the repeating units and, especially, the end‐groups of the maleimide‐substituted polyethylene glycols. Liquid chromatography analysis at critical conditions could provide useful information to optimize the synthesis of functional polyethylene glycols. To our knowledge, this is the first report of the baseline separation of maleimide‐functionalized polyethylene glycols based on the functionality independent of the molar mass without derivatization by isocratic elution.     

Separation of enantiomers by high performance liquid chromatography using chiral eluents

Simple procedures are presented for separating the enantiomers of α-methyldopa, 5-hydroxytryptophan, tryptophan, triiodothyronine and thyroxine, which require neither special sorbents nor difficult-to-obtain or unstable reagents. The method for α-methyldopa, 5-hydroxytryptophan and tryptophan is based on the use of L-phenylalanine copper complex as the chiral constituent of the mobile phase; LiChrosorb® RP-18 serves as the stationary phase. The procedure for triiodothyronine and thyroxine is grounded on the L-proline copper complex as the chiral reagent and LiChrosorb® Si 60 as the stationary phase. In all observed cases, the D-enantiomer is eluted prior to the respective L-enantiomer. Chirality inversion of the mobile phase (application of the D-phenylalanine copper complex) reverses the order of elution; a racemic eluent (DL-phenylalanine copper complex) leads to no separation. In addition to the enantiomers of α-amino acids, the enantiomers of α-hydroxy acids (mandelic acid) can be separated.