Separation of inorganic anions using a series of sulfobetaine exchangers

A set of five new sulfobetaine exchangers with inner quaternary amines and outer sulfonic acids have been prepared. A series of zwitterionic precursors was attached to highly porous divinylbenzene polymer using a grafting reaction, which allows a flexible adjustment of the degree of functionalisation. The resulting materials have identical spacers to the polymeric backbone and differ only in chain length between the charged functional groups. Capacities of the stationary phases were analysed by two different methods based on elemental analysis and the results obtained were found to correlate. The application of combustion elemental analysis proved an identical molar content of sulfur and nitrogen. The distance between the charged functional groups is varied from one to five methylene groups for a better understanding of the retention behaviour of inorganic anions on zwitterionic stationary phases. Inorganic anions were separated using sodium acetate eluents with varying ionic strength and pH and the behaviour of all columns has been compared to each other and to ZIC-HILIC and ZIC-pHILIC columns from Merck SeQuant. The exchangers with two and five methylene groups between the charges showed the highest retention factors. Polarity and accessibility of the anion exchange sites are dependent on the distance between the charged groups and the flexibility of the chains. These properties have a strong influence on anion separations. The exchanger with two methylene groups between the charged functional groups showed the biggest difference as compared to the commercially available ZIC-HILIC and ZIC-pHILIC exchangers.