Adamantyl-group containing mixed-mode acrylamide-based continuous beds for capillary electrochromatography. Part III. Optimization of the chromatographic efficiency

• Optimization of synthesis parameters regarding concentration of AS, VSA, and initiator.
• The contents of AS and APS in the polymerization mixture strongly influence the chromatographic efficiency.
• Variation of the molar fraction of VSA in the synthesis mixture influences the efficiency via impact on the retention factor.
• The dependence of Hmin on k is increasing with the domain size of the monolith.

In a previous article we described the synthesis of amphiphilic monolithic stationary phases by in situ free radical copolymerization of cyclodextrin-solubilized N-adamantyl acrylamide, piperazinediacrylamide, methacrylamide and vinylsulfonic acid in aqueous medium in pre-treated fused silica capillaries of 100 μ.m I.D. In this work, a series of N-adamantyl-group containing acrylamide-based continuous beds is synthesized under variation of different synthesis parameters. The studied synthesis parameters are (i) concentration of the lyotropic salt ammonium sulfate, (ii) concentration of the initiator ammonium persulfate, and (iii) concentration of the negatively charged monomer vinylsulfonic acid in the polymerization mixture. The influence of the synthesis parameters on the chromatographic efficiency is studied under isocratic conditions for a homologues series of alkylphenones in the reversed-phase mode at constant composition of the mobile phase via capillary electrochromatography with varied electric field strength. With varied concentration of the lyotropic salt ammonium sulfate or varied concentration of the initiator ammonium persulfate in the polymerization mixture, a strong impact on the chromatographic efficiency is observed, while there is only a minor influence when varying the molar fraction of the charged monomer VSA. The absence of a significant influence of extra-column band broadening effects on the determined efficiency is confirmed. There is a good repeatability (with respect to capillary-to-capillary variation and run-to-run variation) reached for the theoretical plate heights obtained for DMF and selected alkylphenones in the reversed-phase mode.