Journal of Chromatography & Separation Techniques
Open Access

Recent progress in liquid chromatography of synthetic polymers

3^rd International Conference and Exhibition on Advances in Chromatography & HPLC Techniques

July 13-14, 2017 Berlin, Germany

Dusan Berek

Polymer Institute - SAS, Slovakia

Keynote: J Chromatogr Sep Tech

Abstract :

High performance liquid chromatographic (HPLC) methods represent the most important tool for molecular characterization of synthetic polymers. Mean molar masses and molar mass distributions of linear and branched homopolymers are readily determined by size exclusion/gel permeation chromatography (SEC/GPC). As by-products, several other useful data can be assessed with SEC/GPC. Recent progress in SEC/GPC comprises improved instruments and data processing procedures. High sample throughput of the ultra-fast SEC/GPC allows acceleration of analyses, which is especially important in combinatorial material chemistry and in production control. Still, further improvements of the SEC/GPC method are needed, which include its hardware, especially columns and detectors, and also standardization of sample preparation, measurement, and data processing. SEC/GPC exhibits excellent intra-laboratory repeatability, which evokes a notion of its high reliability. Recent series of the round robin tests, however, revealed surprisingly poor inter-laboratory reproducibility of results. Evidently, accuracy of many SEC/GPC results may be rather limited. In most cases, SEC/GPC does not enable precise molecular characterization of complex polymer systems, which possess more than one dispersity (distribution) in their molecular characteristics. Typically, polymer mixtures, copolymers and functional polymers exhibit besides molar mass distribution also distribution in their chemical structure while e.g. stereoregular polymer species show also molecular architecture distribution. To assess above distributions, new HPLC procedures are developed. These are based on the controlled combinations of entropic (exclusion) and enthalpic (interaction) retention mechanisms within the same HPLC column or in a series of independent separation systems. These approaches are denoted â�?�?coupled polymer HPLCâ�? and â�?�?two-, or multi-dimensional polymer HPLCâ�?, respectively. Enthalpic retention mechanisms in HPLC of synthetic polymers include adsorption, partition, phase separation and ionic effects. We shall review recent progress and also inherent problems in SEC/GPC, as well as in coupled and two-dimensional polymer HPLC procedures, and outline anticipated future developments in these fields.

Biography :

Dusan Berek works at the Polymer Institute, Slovak Academy of Sciences in Bratislava. He has served as the Elected Member of the Presidium of the Slovak Academy of Sciences, President of the Slovak Chemical Society, Chairman of the Czecho-Slovak and Slovak National Committee of Chemistry for IUPAC. He is a corresponding member of the Central European Academy of Sciences and member of the Learned Society of the Slovak Academy of Sciences. He has authored two monographs and more than 300 scientific papers in reputed journals, proceedings and book chapters. He has more than 60 patents. He has presented over 120 invited plenary, key and main lectures, as well as over 900 regular lectures and poster contributions in symposia and conferences.

Email: dusan.berek@savba.sk