Preparation And Evaluation Of Two TAIC Monolithic Columns

Monolithic columns as the station phase of high performance liquid chromatography have been widely reported for their unique properties since 1990 s and successfully used for the separation of large biomolecules. However, the separation efficiency of monolithic columns for small molecules is not high enough, which have limited their further application. The change of initiation and optimization of functional monomers were proposed in this article to enhance the separation efficiency for small molecules.Firstly, a novel porous monolithic column was prepared through redox initiation with triallyl isocyanurate and methacrylic acid as monomers, ethylene dimethacrylate as a cross-linker, and dodecanol and methanol as the porogens. The permeability, pore size, and pore morphology of the column were characterized. The addition of MAA could improve the hydrophilicity of the monolith, thereby increasing the interaction with small molecules to enhance the resolution and column efficiency. A series of neutral, acidic, and basic molecules were used to evaluate the performance of the monoliths and the enhanced column efficiency was obtained.Secondly, 1-allyl-3-methylimidazolium chloride as functional monomer was incorporated into the triallyl isocyanurate monolithic columns. After the optimization, the resulted monoliths exhibited good mechanical stability and separation efficiency. Good isolation of a series of aromatic compounds could be achieved in a short time, which demonstrated that the combination of ILs and atom transfer radical polymerization was beneficial to improve the chromatographic performance in the separation of small molecules.