In high performance liquid chromatography, there is a trend of replacing conventional particle-packed column with capillaries containing highly porous monolithic separation media. Major advantage of using this technique is the achieving the separations at shorter time allowing high throughput analyses. The aim of this study is to develop a hybrid monolith combining both inorganic and organic building blocks using light as an initiator. This process was done by filling the pretreated UV transparent capillary with a homogeneous solution that consisted of 3-(trimethoxysilyl)propyl methacrylate, a catalyst (0.12 mol/L hydrochloric acid), a porogen (toluene), and a photoinitiator (2,2-dimethoxy-2-phenylacetophenone). Filled capillary was irradiated during the sol-gel transition at 254 nm and energy of 900 mJ/cm2 to initiate polymerization reaction of the methacrylate functionalities. The presence of the hydrophobic organic polymer on the pore surface of the monolith was confirmed through ability of the resulting stationary phase to separate alkylbenzenes under isocratic conditions.

Preparation of organo-silica monolithic column for application in capillary liquid chromatography using photopolymerization

243rd National Meeting (2012)

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