Separation of telechelic oligomers according to architecture by liquid chromatography

•Liquid chromatography at critical conditions.•Liquid exclusion adsorption chromatography.•Separation of diblock copolymers from triblock copolymers.•Separation according to symmetry.•Identification of fractions by MALDI-TOF-MS.

Telechelic oligomers based on diethylene glycol or lower polyethylene glycols and caprolactone or butene oxide can be separated according to their architecture by means of liquid chromatography under adsorption conditions for the hydrophobic block and critical or exclusion conditions for PEG. This behavior, which is predicted by the theory, can be verified by the experiment for block copolymers of ethylene oxide with ɛ-caprolactone and butene oxide. The individual peaks were identified by matrix-assisted time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF-MS) of fractions obtained by semipreparative liquid chromatography at critical conditions of center block (PEG) and adsorption conditions for outer blocks (PCL and PBO).