Highly crosslinked monolithic capillary columns with inner diameters in the range of 50-530 μm were prepared by radical polymerization of pentaerythritol tetraacrylate, polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxane-methacrylate, and n-octadecyl methacrylate in the presence of methanol, dodecyl alcohol, and polyethylene glycol lauryl ether. Columns were evaluated by inverse size-exclusion chromatography employing a set of polystyrene standards of narrow molecular-size distribution and by scanning electron microscopy. Chromatographic performance under reversed-phase conditions was also evaluated. The combination of two effective crosslinkers as pentaerythritol tetraacrylate and polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxane-methacrylate in the polymerization mixture allows for the preparation of robust and efficient monolithic capillary columns within a fairly wide range of internal diameters.
Keywords: inverse size-exclusion chromatography; methacrylate; monoliths; porosity; silsesquioxane.
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