Charge-Based Separation of Acid-Functional Polymers by Non-aqueous Capillary Electrophoresis Employing Deprotonation and Heteroconjugation Approaches.

Water-borne polymers are in ever-increasing demand due to their favorable ecological profile compared to traditional solvent-borne polymer systems. Many water-borne polymer particles are stabilized in aqueous media by the incorporation of acid-functional monomers. Due to the large variety of comonomers applied, these water-borne polymers have various superimposed statistical distributions, which make it challenging to obtain in-depth information regarding incorporation of the acidic monomers. For selective analysis of the incorporated acidic monomers, a charge-based non-aqueous capillary electrophoresis (NACE) separation was developed. Two approaches were developed: (i) deprotonation of the acid functionality with an organically soluble strong base and (ii) heteroconjugation of anions of carboxylic acids with incorporated acid functionality. In both approaches, N-methylpyrrolidone, as a strong solvent for polymers with a favorable relative permittivity for the presence of dissociated ionic species, was used for the separation. It was shown that anions of carboxylic acids specifically associate with the incorporated acid groups in the polymers, resulting in negatively charged complexes that could be separated based on charge-to-size ratio by NACE. Although both approaches give comparable results with respect to acid distribution for acid-functional polymers, the effective mobility of the deprotonated polymers is roughly double that obtained from the heteroconjugation approach. Unlike the heteroconjugation approach, deprotonation conditions were detrimental to the fused-silica capillary, limiting practical use. Polymers with different chemical compositions, molecular weights, and acid contents were subjected to the CE approaches developed. Polymers with varying molecular weight but similar relative acid monomer content were shown to have similar migration times, which confirms that this approach separates polymers based on charge-to-size ratio.

Charge-based separation of synthetic macromolecules by non-aqueous ion exchange chromatography.

Traditional polymer-separation methods, such as size-exclusion chromatography and (gradient) liquid adsorption chromatography, cannot provide separations exclusively based on the number of deprotonated carboxylic-acid groups along the backbone chain of polymers. A novel separation method, based on non-aqueous ion-exchange chromatography (NAIEX), was developed, which allows such a separation of acid-functional polymers that are soluble in organic solvents. The polar, aprotic N-methyl-2-pyrrolidone was found to be a suitable solvent. It features a high relative permittivity (favouring dissociation of ion pairs into free ions) and it is a good solvent for polymers and organic salts, such as triethyl-ammonium formate. A negative charge is established on these polymers by deprotonation of the carboxylic-acid groups in the presence of an organic superbase (tetramethyl guanidine). Traditional potent organic bases, such as triethylamine, do not possess the base strength to compensate for the increase in pKa of polymeric carboxylic acid groups in non-aqueous conditions. Triethyl-ammonium formate is proposed as an alternative to traditional salts used for elution in aqueous ion-exchange chromatography. Separation was performed on an industry-standard strong-anion-exchange column and (near-)universal detection of the polymers was performed by high-temperature evaporative-light-scattering detection. The NAIEX method yielded a separation based on the acid-functionality distribution of the polymer. NAIEX was compared with traditional normal- and reversed-phase liquid-chromatography approaches for the separation of acid-functional copolymers.

Size-exclusion chromatography using core-shell particles.

Size-exclusion chromatography (SEC) is an indispensable technique for the separation of high-molecular-weight analytes and for determining molar-mass distributions. The potential application of SEC as second-dimension separation in comprehensive two-dimensional liquid chromatography demands very short analysis times. Liquid chromatography benefits from the advent of highly efficient core-shell packing materials, but because of the reduced total pore volume these materials have so far not been explored in SEC. The feasibility of using core-shell particles in SEC has been investigated and contemporary core-shell materials were compared with conventional packing materials for SEC. Columns packed with very small core-shell particles showed excellent resolution in specific molar-mass ranges, depending on the pore size. The analysis times were about an order of magnitude shorter than what could be achieved using conventional SEC columns.