Fabrication of Organic Monoliths

Because of the fact that organic polymers are known to suffer from swelling or shrinkage on changing the solvent [73,74], the inner wall of the column housings (fused silica capillaries or borosilicate columns) has—prior to polymerization—to be derivatized in order to provide chemical attachment of the monolith rod to the wall. 

FIGURE 1.3 Schematic representation of the silanization procedure of borosilicate or fused silica capillary column inner walls, (a) Surface etching under alkaline conditions, (b) attachment of reactive groups by condensation with silanol, (c) chemical linkage of polymer (PS/DVB considered as example) by free radical polymerization. 

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Due to the fact that thermally initiated free radical copolymerization is by far the most routinely employed method for fabrication of organic monolithic stationary phases, the pore formation mechanism is discussed for this particular kind of polymerization. 

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