Synthesis of a poly(sulfobetaine-co-polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxane) hybrid monolith via an in-situ ring opening quaternization for use in hydrophilic interaction capillary liquid chromatography.

An in-situ approach is described for synthesis of poly(sulfobetaine-co-polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxane) [poly(sulfobetaine-co-POSS)] that can be used in a hybrid monolithic column as a hydrophilic liquid chromatography (HILIC) stationary phase. Synthesis involves (a) radical polymerization of octa(propyl methacrylate)-polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxane (MA-POSS) and organic monomers such as dimethylaminopropyl methacrylate or vinyl imidazole, and (b) in-situ ring-opening quaternization between 1,4-butane sultone and the organic monomers. The sulfobetaine groups are generated in-situ monolith. This obviates the need for synthesis of sulfobetaine monomer previously. The pore size and permeability of the material can be tuned by using a binary porogenic system (polyethyleneglycol 600 and acetonitrile) and via the composition of the polymerization mixture. The optimized hybrid monolith owns its merits to the presence of POSS and sulfobetaine groups with good mechanical stability, the lack of residual silanol groups, and adequate hydrophilicity. The column filled with the monoliths was evaluated as a stationary phase for HILIC. Several kinds of polar compounds (including nucleosides, bases, phenols, aromatic acids and amides) were separated by using mobile phases with high organic solvent fractions in capillary liquid chromatography. Graphical abstractAn in-situ approach is described for synthesis of poly(sulfobetaine-co-polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxane) hybrid monolithic column for use in hydrophilic liquid chromatography. The optimized monolith owns good mechanical stability, the lack of residual silanol groups and adequate hydrophilicity. Baseline separation of several kinds of polar compounds is achieved on the column. MA-POSS: octa(propyl-methacrylate) polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxane; DMAEMA: dimethylaminoethyl methacrylate; AIBN: azodiisobutyronitrile. Poly(DMABS-co-POSS): poly(N-(4-sulfobutyl)-N-methacryloxypropyl- N,N-dimethylammonium-betaine-co-polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxane).

The preparation of a poly (pentaerythritol tetraglycidyl ether-co-poly ethylene imine) organic monolithic capillary column and its application in hydrophilic interaction chromatography for polar molecules.

An easy single-step thermal treatment "one-pot" approach for the preparation of poly (pentaerythritol tetraglycidyl ether-co-poly ethylene imine) organic monolithic capillary columns was developed successfully. The column was prepared by the epoxy-amine ring-opening polymerization of pentaerythritol tetraglycidyl ether (PTE) with poly (ethylene imine) (PEI) using acetonitrile (ACN) and polyethylene glycol 600 (PEG 600) as the porogenic system at 60 °C for 12 h. The obtained monolith was homogeneous and permeable. It achieved the high-efficiency separation of polar molecules including amides, nucleosides, bases, phenols, and benzoic acids in capillary liquid chromatography (cLC). The highest column efficiency reached ca. 101,000 plates/m (for guanine) on monolith poly(PTE-co-PEI) at 0.64 mm/s, and satisfactory chromatographic performance with column efficiencies ranged from 45,500 to 97,000 plates/m was achieved for the four amides. A typical hydrophilic interaction liquid chromatography (HILIC) retention mechanism was observed with high organic solvent contents (>60% ACN). Also, the polymer-based monolithic column was successfully applied to separate the tumor markers. Furthermore, the poly(PTE-co-PEI) monolith could be easily modified with 1, 2-epoxydodecane, which reacted with the amino groups presented on the surface of the poly(PTE-co-PEI) monolith. Hydrophobic interactions were observed during the separation of alkylbenzenes and anilines on the post-modified poly(PTE-co-PEI) monolith. Together, these results confirm the feasibility of the epoxy-amine ring-opening polymerization reaction during the fabrication of a monolithic column with high efficiency for cLC applications.

The synthesis of Gemini-type sulfobetaine based hybrid monolith and its application in hydrophilic interaction chromatography for small polar molecular.

In this work, a novel Gemini-type sulfobetaine-based hybrid monolith was fabricated by co-polymerization of a homemade Gemini-type sufobetaine, 1,3-bis (N-(3-sulfopropyl)-N-(methacrylic acid-2-hydroxy propyl ester)-N-methyl ammonium)-propane (BSMMP) with vinyltrimethoxysilane (VTMS) and tetramethoxysilane (TMOS) in the presence of 2'-azobis (2-methylpropionamidine) dihydrochloride (V50) as initiator. The recipe of pre-copolymerization solution for monolith preparation was optimized carefully, and the resulting monolith was characterized by scan electron microscope (SEM), fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) and thermal gravimetry analysis (TGA). The results indicated that the optimized monolith possess homogeneous bio-continue pore structure, and a relatively high proportion of the sulfobetaine groups was successfully introduced into the monolith. The results from permeability test shows that the proposed monoliths have excellent permeability within both water rich mobile phase and acetonitrile rich mobile phase, due to the rigid inorganic framework of hybrid monolith. Results showed that the relative standard deviations (RSDs) of run-to-run, column-to-column and batch-to-batch were less than 1.9%, 3.7% and 6.2%, respectively. The lowest plate height value of the column for thiourea was less than 10µm. Furthermore, separating the polar small molecules including nucleosides, the base species, the phenols and the amides were performed within 14min, 22min 18min and 9min on the prepared monolith, respectively, good separation effect on these polar small molecules was found, and remarkable hydrophilic retention behavior was observed when an acetonitrile rich mobile phase was applied, attributing to the existence of strong polar Gemini-type sulfobetaine groups. Finally, the potential application of the resulting monolith in complex sample was successfully demonstrated by separating a BSA digest in gradient elution mode.

Facile "one-pot" synthesis of poly(methacrylic acid)-based hybrid monolith via thiol-ene click reaction for hydrophilic interaction chromatography.

A novel sol-gel "one-pot" approach in tandem with a radical-mediated thiol-ene reaction for the synthesis of a methacrylic acid-based hybrid monolith was developed. The polymerization monomers, tetramethoxysilane (TMOS) and 3-mercaptopropyl trimethoxysilane (MPTS), were hydrolyzed in high-concentration methacrylic acid solution that also served as a hydrophilic functional monomer. The resulting solution was then mixed with initiator (2, 2'-azobis (2-methylpropionamide) dihydrochloride) and porogen (urea, polyethylene glycol 20,000) in a capillary column and polymerized in water bath. The column had a uniform porous structure and a good permeability. The evaluation of the monolith was performed by separation of small molecules including nucleosides, phenols, amides, bases and Triton X-100. The calibration curves for uridine, inosine, adenosine and cytidine were determined. All the calibration curves exhibited good linear regressions (R(2)≥0.995) within the test ranges of 0.5-40µg/mL for four nucleosides. Additionaliy, atypical hydrophilic mechanism was proved by elution order from low to high according to polarity retention time increased with increases in the content of the organic solvent in the mobile phase. Further studies indicated that hydrogen bond and electrostatic interactions existed between the polar analytes and the stationary phase. This was the mechanism of retention. The excellent separation of the BSA digest showed good hydrophility of the column and indicated the potential in separation of complex biological samples.