| Article ID | Journal | Published Year | Pages | File Type |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1162775 | Analytica Chimica Acta | 2016 | 9 Pages |
•A highly crosslinked polymeric monolith was fast prepared with a multi-acrylate monomer as crosslinker within 5 min.•The addition of thiol eliminated the major obstacle of oxygen inhibition in the thiol-ene (acrylate/methacrylate) polymerization.•Poly(ODT-co-DPEPA) monolith exhibited efficient chromatographic performance for separation of alkylbenzenes and tryptic digest of proteins.
A facile approach was exploited for fast preparation of polymer-based monoliths in UV-transparent fused-silica capillaries via “one-pot” photo-initiated thiol-acrylate polymerization reaction of dipentaerythritolpenta-/hexaacrylate (DPEPA) and 1-octadecanethiol (ODT) in the presence of porogenic solvents (1-butanol and ethylene glycol). Due to relative insensitivity of oxygen inhibition in thiol-ene free-radical polymerization, the polymerization could be performed within 5 min. The effects of composition of prepolymerization solution on the morphology and permeability of poly(ODT-co-DPEPA) monoliths were investigated in detail by adjusting the content of monomer and binary porogen ratio. The physical properties of poly(ODT-co-DPEPA) monoliths were characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), mercury intrusion porosimetry (MIP) and nitrogen adsorption/desorption measurement. The evaluation of chromatographic performance was carried out by capillary liquid chromatography (cLC). The results indicated that the poly(ODT-co-DPEPA) monolith was homogeneous and permeable, and also possessed a typical reversed-phase retention mechanism in cLC with high efficiency (∼75,000 N m−1) for separation of alkylbenzenes. Eventually, the further separation of tryptic digest of proteins by cLC tandem mass spectrometry (cLC-MS/MS) demonstrated its potential in the analysis of biological samples.
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