title: Liquid chromatography under limiting conditions of desorption 6: separation of a four-component polymer blend.
abstract: Baseline separation was achieved of a model four-component polymer blend of polystyrene-poly(methyl methacrylate)-poly(ethylene oxide)-poly(2-vinyl pyridine) in a single chromatographic run with help of the unconventional method of liquid chromatography under limiting conditions of desorption. Narrow barriers of liquids were employed, which selectively decelerated elution of particular kinds of macromolecules. Bare silica gel was the column packing, and the eluent was a mixture of dimethylformamide/tetrahydrofuran/toluene 30:50:20 w/w/w. Barrier compositions were neat toluene, B#1, neat tetrahydrofuran, B#2, and dimethylformamide/tetrahydrofuran/toluene 15:55:30, B#3. Minor blend constituents (∼1%) could be identified, as well. The result represents a step toward the separation and molecular characterization of triblock-copolymers, many of which are expected to contain besides both parent homopolymers also the diblock chains and thus they are in fact four-component polymer blends.
authors.affiliation: Polymer Institute, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Bratislava, Slovakia.
authors.forename: Dušan
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Berek
authors.forename: Eva
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Macová
keywords: Entropy-enthalpy combination; Four-component blends; Liquid chromatography; Minor constituents; Synthetic polymers