Polystyrene divinylbenzene columns

Nieminen E, Heikkila P. 1986. Simultaneous determination of phenol, cresols and xylenols in workplace air, using a polystyrene-divinylbenzene column and electrochemical detection. J Chromatogr 360 271-278. 

Aqueous samples may be analyzed by HPLC on an underivatized polystyrene-divinylbenzene column such as PolyRPCO (Alltech 1995) or a C-18 reverse phase column gradient acetonitrile and 0.01 A/K3P04 at pH 7 (55 45) and the analyte detected by UV at 254 nm. 

The cell free samples were mixed with perchloric acid/perchlorate and stored at low temperature for 48 h, at 6000 rpm centrifuged, decanted, stored at -22°C for a week and centrifuged again for deproteination. The separation was performed on an ion exclusion polystyrene/divinylbenzene column at 40 °C with 15 mM sulfuric acid as eluent and detection at 205 nm. For the quantification a standard was applied. A typical chromatogram is shown in Figure 6. Pyruvate, succinate, lactate, formate and acetate were detected in the cultivation medium. 

L. D. Bowers and S. Pedigo, Solvent strength studies on polystyrene-divinylbenzene columns /. Chromatogr. 371 (1986), 243-251. 

Commercial polyethylenes have a broad molecular mass distribution (see Figure 4.2), and a column or columns with a wide range of molecular size separation is required. Polystyrene/divinylbenzene column packings alone have the necessary range and resolution. Silica-based columns may replace these in the future, since they have better thermal stability, but at the moment are limited by the molecular mass range available. 

For solid-phase extraction, the offline procedure, based on sample pretreatment on disposable SPE cartridges, and a totally automated online procedure, based on column switching, have been developed. The column switching procedure involves the use of a polystyrene-divinylbenzene column for sample concentration and cleanup. 

Hydrophobicity in an ion-exchange column can have both positive and negative attributes. An attractive feature is that it can change the selectivity and increase the resolution between some species. The negative aspect of columns that are both charged and hydrophobic is that they often show lower protein recovery. An extreme case is the use of sulfonated polystyrene-divinylbenzene columns on which recovery of proteins is often very poor. 

Figure 3 Automated ASTED system for the determination of opiates in human blood. C = polystyrene-divinylbenzene column W = waste. See text for details.

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