Analysis using size exclusion chromatography of poly(N-isopropyl acrylamide) using methanol as an eluent

•One of first examples of stable Methanol based SEC system for polymer analysis.•Universal Calibration determined using DOSY NMR to get intrinsic viscosity.•Analysis of difficult to characterise branched polyacrylamides.

Size Exclusion Chromatography is traditionally carried out in either aqueous or non-polar solvents. A system to present molar mass distributions of polymers using methanol as a mobile phase is presented. This is shown to be a suitable system for determining the molar mass distributions poly(N-isopropylacrylamide)s (PNIPAM); a polymer class that is often difficult to analyze by size exclusion chromatography. DOSY NMR was used to provide intrinsic viscosity data that was used in conjunction with a viscometric detector to provide absolute calibration. Then the utility of the system was shown by providing the absolute molar mass distributions of dispersed highly branched PNIPAM with biologically functional end groups.