Surface stationary-phase compatibility

Capillary Columns for SFC-MS. At present, the major limitation to broad application of capillary SFC technology is related to the availability of columns compatible with supercritical fluid mobile phases. The fused silica capillary columns used in this work were deactivated and coated with crosslinked and surface-bonded stationary phases using techniques similar to those reported by Lee and coworkers (40,41). Columns from less than 1 m to more than 20 m in length and with inner diameters of 10 to 200 ym have been examined. Colvimn deactivation was achieved by purging with a dry nitrogen flow at 350 C for several hours followed by silylation with a polymethylhydrosiloxane. Any unreacted groups on the hydro-siloxane were capped by treatment with chlorotrimethylsilane at 250 C. After deactivation, the columns were coated with approximately a 0.15-.25 ym film of SE-54 (5Z phenyl polymethylphenyl-siloxane) or other polysiloxane stationary phases. The coated stationary phases were crosslinked and bonded to the deactivation layer by extensive crosslinking with azo-t-butane (41). The importance of deactivation procedures for elution of more polar compounds, such as the trichothecenes, has been demonstrated elsewhere (42). 

From the beginning, a wide range of different materials have been used as stationary phases in liquid chromatography. Their selection depends primarily on three key properties chemical stability, mechanical stabihty, and specific surface area. The chemical stability is important for achieving the greatest possible compatibility with the mobile phase used, and on this depends also the possibihty of bringing the analytes to be determined into solution. 

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