A novel amphipathic block copolymer coating forming micelle-like aggregates for separation of steroids in open tubular capillary electrochromatography

A new amphipathic block copolymer, poly(tert-butyl acrylate)₁₂₇-block-poly(glycidyl methacrylate)₈₆, was developed for the coating in open tubular capillary electrochromatography. The self-assembly characters of the coating, which could form micelle-like aggregates under proper conditions, were observed by atomic force microscopy. Compared with bare capillary, this coating could act as surfactant and lead to improve the separation of steroids. In addition, the influence of pH, buffer concentration and organic solvents on the separation was investigated. The best separation of the three model steroid analytes could be achieved using 20.0 mM borate buffer at pH 10.5. For covalent bonding, the coating showed good repeatability and stability with RSD of u_EOF less than 3.3%. Then, this proposed method was well validated with good linearity (≥0.999), recovery (91.0-94.0%) and repeatability, and was successfully used for separation of steroids in spiked serum samples, which indicated that this new OT-CEC method could provide a potential tool to determine steroids in real biological system without interference.