Comprehensive study of the macropore and mesopore size distributions in polymer monoliths using complementary physical characterization techniques and liquid chromatography

Poly(styrene‐co‐divinylbenzene) monolithic stationary phases with two different domain sizes were synthesized by a thermally initiated free‐radical copolymerization in capillary columns. The morphology was investigated at the meso‐ and macroscopic level using complementary physical characterization techniques aiming at better understanding the effect of column structure on separation performance. Varying the porogenic solvent ratio yielded materials with a mode pore size of 200 nm and 1.5 μm, respectively. Subsequently, nano‐liquid chromatography experiments were performed on 200 μm id × 200 mm columns using unretained markers, linking structure inhomogeneity to eddy dispersion. Although small‐domain‐size monoliths feature a relatively narrow macropore‐size distribution, their homogeneity is compromised by the presence of a small number of large macropores, which induces a significant eddy‐dispersion contribution to band broadening. The small‐domain size monolith also has a relatively steep mass‐transfer term, compared to a monolith containing larger globules and macropores. Structural inhomogeneity was also studied at the mesoscopic level using gas‐adsorption techniques combined with the non‐local‐density‐function‐theory. This model allows to accurately determine the mesopore properties in the dry state. The styrene‐based monolith with small domain size has a distinctive trimodal mesopore distribution with pores of 5, 15, and 25 nm, whereas the monolith with larger feature sizes only contains mesopores around 5 nm in size.