Surfaces energies of monoliths by inverse liquid chromatography and contact angles.

Seven porous chromatographic columns, termed monoliths, and seven nonporous sheets were produced from polymethacrylates. Their surfaces were activated by different densities of butyl and phenyl ligands. We determined the retention times of highly dilute molecular probes in monoliths and accessed contact angles of pure molecular probes of sheets. We calculated surface energies for both systems. We applied theories of Young, Dupré, and van Oss and compared the results of both types of experiments with respect to Lifshitz-van der Waals and Lewis acid and Lewis base contributions and find agreement but an additive constant.

Surface energies of hydrophobic interaction chromatography media by inverse liquid chromatography.

Hydrophobicity of hydrophobic interaction chromatography media is currently ranked according to retention of reference proteins. A new method, suitable for porous media, is presented here to determine the surface energy and its Lifshitz-van-der-Waals, Lewis acid and Lewis base contributions. The theory of van Oss has been adapted for data obtained by inverse liquid chromatography. Furthermore, this method is characterized by the independence of the determination of the phase ratio. The retention of probes with different molecular properties was used to calculate the surface energy and the Lifshitz-van-der-Waals as well as Lewis acid and Lewis base contributions to the surface energy. The media with polymethacrylate backbone had a higher surface energy (γ ≈ 200 mJ/m(2)) and Lifshitz-van-der-Waals contribution (γ(LW) ≈ 140 mJ/m(2)) than the agarose-based media (γ ≈ 90-180 mJ/m(2) and γ(LW) ≈ 50-160 mJ/m(2)).