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From simple homopolymers to functionalized, 3-dimensional structured copolymers, the complexity of polymeric materials has become more and more sophisticated. With new applications for instance in the semiconductor or pharmaceutical industry, the requirements for the characterization have risen with the complexity of the used polymers. For each additional distribution, an additional dimension in analysis is needed. Small, often isomeric heterogeneities in topology or microstructure can usually not be simply separated chromatographically or distinguished by any common detector, but affect the properties of materials significantly. For a drug delivery system for example, the degree of branching and branching distribution is crucial for the formation of micelles. Instead of a complicated, time consuming and/or expensive 2d-chromatography or ion mobility spectrometry (IMS) method, that also has its limitations, in this work a simple approach using size exclusion chromatography (SEC) coupled with electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (ESI) is proposed. The online coupling allows the analysis of reconstructed ion chromatograms (RIC) of each degree of polymerization. While a complete separation often cannot be achieved, the derived retention times and peak widths lead to information on the existence and dispersity of heterogeneities. Although some microstructural heterogeneities like short chain branching can for large polymers be characterized with methods such as light scattering, for oligomers where the heterogeneities just start to form and their influence is at the maximum, they are inaccessible with these methods. It is also shown, that with a proper calibration even quantitative information can be obtained. This method is suitable to detect small differences in e. g. branching, 3d-structure, monomer sequence or tacticity and could potentially be used in routine analysis to quickly determine deviations.
Characterization of statistical EO-PO copolymers containing different end groups by UPLC/ESI-MS
(2016)
Commercial statistical ethylene oxide (EO) and propylene oxide (PO) copolymers of different monomer compositions and different average molar masses were studied by liquid chromatography under critical conditions (LCCC). Theoretical predictions of the existence of a critical adsorption point (CPA) for statistical copolymers with a given chemical and sequence distribution, could be studied and confirmed. An improved way to determine these critical conditions in a copolymer, alongside the inevitable chemical composition distribution (CCD), with the aid of mass spectrometric detection is described. Shift of the critical eluent composition with the monomer composition of the polymers could be observed. Due to the relatively low average molecular weight, broad molecular weight distribution (MWD) and the presumed existence of different end group functionalities as well as sequence distribution, gradient separation only by CCD was not possible. Therefore isocratic separations at the CPA of definite CCD’s were applied. Although the various present distributions partly superimposed the separation process the goal of separation by end group functionality could still be achieved on the basis of the additional dimension of ESI-MS. The existence of HO-H besides the desired AllylO-H end group functionalities could be confirmed and their amount could be estimated.