Recycling gradient-elution liquid chromatography for the analysis of chemical-composition distributions of polymers

Synthetic polymers typically show dispersity in molecular weight and potentially in chemical composition. For the analysis of the chemical-composition distribution (CCD) gradient liquid chromatography may be used. The CCD obtained using this method is often convoluted with an underlying molecularweight distribution (MWD). In this paper we demonstrate that the influence of the MWD can be reduced using very steep gradients and that such gradients are best realized utilizing recycling gradient liquid chromatography (LC JLC). This method allows for a more-accurate determination of the CCD and the assessment of (approximate) critical conditions (if these exist), even when high-molecular-weight standards of narrow dispersity are not readily available. The performance and usefulness of the approach is demonstrated for several polystyrene standards, and for the separation of statistical copolymers consisting of styrene/methyl methacrylate and methyl methacrylate/butyl methacrylate. For the latter case, approximate critical compositions of the copolymers were calculated from the critical compositions of two homopolymers and one copolymer of known chemical composition, allowing for a determination of the CCD of unknown samples. Using this approach it is shown that the copolymers elute significantly closer to the predicted critical compositions after recycling of the gradient. This is most clear for the lowestmolecular-weight copolymer ( M w = 4.2 kDa), for which the difference between measured and predicted elution composition decreases from 7.9% without recycling to 1.4% after recycling.(c) 2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY license ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ )

Automated summary

This study demonstrates that the influence of molecular weight distribution on chemical composition distribution analysis can be reduced using recycling gradient liquid chromatography. The method shows high accuracy and usefulness in determining the chemical composition distribution and evaluating critical conditions of polymers.