Functional crosslinked polymer particles synthesized by precipitation polymerization for liquid chromatography

Highly crosslinked functional polymer particles with narrow size distribution have been produced by precipitation copolymerization of divinylbenzene, ethylene glycol dimethacrylate and vinylbenzyl chloride using a simple reflux protocol. After establishing the satisfactory synthesis conditions, we produced uniform chlorobenzyl particles with different size depending on the polymerization times. The porosity of those particles was modulated from microporous to mesoporous structure by using various porogens such as toluene, dodecanol, cyclohexanol and polypropylene glycol. These particles were tested as stationary phase in high-performance liquid chromatography for the separation of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in reversed-phase mode. The separation was observed even for elution 100% organic (methanol) without any participation of water fraction in the eluent composition. The influences of particles size, specific surface area and packing conditions on the separation behavior were investigated.