Eluent gradient polymer HPLC adsorption

The setnp for polymer HPLC is qnite similar to SEC systems with a few modifications. Liqnid Adsorption Chromatography (LAC) requires the adsorption and desorption on a stationary phase. Therefore, in most cases isocratic separation is not sufficient. Gradients with respect to pH valne, ionic strength, eluent composition, or temperature are applied. The most common approach is to use eluent composition gradients. In contrast to SEC where polymeric phases dominate, silica-based column packings are the most important stationary phase. Both normal phase and reversed phase separations have been described. A summary of different applications in copolymer separation is offered by Pasch [27]. Detectors used in gradient LAC are mainly UV/DAD detectors and ELSD. 

Eluent gradient adsorption chromatography is one of the main HPLC techniques used in polymer fractionation including deposition-dissolution, chromatography under critical conditions, temperature gradient adsorption LC and precipitation dissolution LC [24-30]. 

As one very striking example of the capabilities of the high-temperature gradient HPLC system, the separation of random ethyleneA inyl acetate copolymers is presented in Fig. 23. On silica gel as the stationary phase and using decaline-cyclo-hexanone as the eluent, full separation of copolymers of different compositions was achieved. In addition, the homopolymers PE and PVAc were well separated from the copolymers. This was the first time that a chromatographic system was available that separates olefin copolymers irrespective of crystallinity and solubiUty over the entire range of compositions. Namely, the mobile phase components used are solvents for both PE and PVAc. The non-polar solvent, decalin, supports adsorption of PVAc on the silica gel, while the polar solvent, cyclohexanone, enables desorption and elution of the adsorbed polymer sample firom the column [155]. 

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