Preparation and characterization of polymethacrylate monolithic capillary columns with dual hydrophilic interaction reversed-phase retention mechanism for polar compounds

Monolithic columns for capillary hydrophilic interaction liquid chromatography (HILIC) were prepared in fused-silica capillaries by radical co-polymerization of [2(methacryloyloxy)ethyl]dimethyl-(3-sulfopropyl)ammonium hydroxide and ethylene dimethacrylate in various binary and ternary porogen solvent mixtures with azobisisobutyronitrile as the initiator of the polymerization reaction. Columns showed mixed separation modes: reversed-phase (RP) in water-rich mobile phases and HILIC at high concentrations of acetonitrile (>60-80%) in aqueous-organic mobile phases. A continuous change in retention was observed at increasing concentration of water in acetonitrile, giving rise to characteristic U-turn plots of retention factors versus the concentration of water in the mobile phase, with minima corresponding to the transition between the mechanisms controlling the retention. The selectivity of organic polymer monolithic columns for HILIC separations can be varied by adjusting the concentration of sulfobetaine monomer and the composition of the porogen solvent in the polymerization mixture. Under HILIC conditions, the monolithic capillary sulfobetaine columns show separation selectivities for polar phenolic acids similar to those of a commercial silica-based sulfobetaine ZIC-HILIC column, which, however, has limited selectivity in the RP mode due to lower retention.