Influence of the crosslinker type on the chromatographic properties of hydrophilic sulfoalkylbetaine-type monolithic columns

•Crosslinker type significantly affects hydrophilicity of sulfobetaine monolithic column.•Column efficiencies as high as 100,000 plates/m were obtained at high linear flow rate.•Crosslinker type affects selectivity of sulfobetaine monolithic column.•The novel hydrophilic monolithic columns are suitable for the separation of polar compounds.

In order to investigate the effects of the crosslinker on the separation performance of polar zwitterionic sulfoalkylbetaine-type monolithic columns, three crosslinkers, i.e. 1,4-bis(acryloyl)piperazine (PDA), ethylene dimethacrylate (EDMA) and N,N′-methylenebisacrylamide (MBA), were copolymerized with the hydrophilic monomer N,N-dimethyl-N-acryloyloxyethyl-N-(3-sulfopropyl)ammonium betaine (SPDA). The chromatographic properties of the three hydrophilic sulfoalkylbetaine-type monolithic columns, including column efficiency, permeability, porosity and separation mechanism, were systematically compared using scanning electron microscopy or micro-HPLC. Good selectivity in micro-HPLC separations was achieved on all three monolithic columns. The results indicate that the polarity of sulfoalkylbetaine-type monolithic columns may be related to the polarity of the crosslinker, which further affects column selectivity and efficiency. A particularly high column efficiency (100,000 plates/m) was obtained on the novel poly(SPDA-co-PDA) monolithic column at a linear velocity of 1 mm/s using thiourea as test analyte. A higher resolution was also observed for nucleobases, nucleosides and hydrophilic organic acids on this novel poly(SPDA-co-PDA) monolithic column compared to the other two columns.