Near-infrared spectroscopic study on guest-host interactions among G0-G7 amine-terminated poly(amidoamine) dendrimers and porous silica materials for simultaneously determining the molecular weight and particle diameter by multivariate calibration techniques.

The guest-host interactions of poly(amidoamine) (PAMAM) dendrimers and porous silica surfaces were investigated by near-infrared (NIR) diffuse reflection spectroscopy. G0-G7 of amine-terminated PAMAM (PAMAM-NH2) dendrimers were analyzed comprising early, mid, and late generations. For early stages, the adsorption process of the partly protonated dendrimers to the negatively charged silica surface strongly depends on the size/shape characteristics of the guest (PAMAM-NH2 dendrimers) and host (porous silica) materials. G0-G4 (15-45 A) show smaller particle sizes than the pore diameter of the silica (60 A) and thus have access to the interior surface of the host material. For mid and later stages (G5-G7; 54-81 A) only low amounts of the dendrimers adsorb to the silica surface due to the inaccessibility to the interior surface. The loading capacity of the silica material with adsorbed PAMAM-NH(2) was evaluated by means of capillary zone electrophoresis (CZE), whereas deviations from the theoretical to the effective particle size and molecular weight (MW) was determined by gas-phase electrophoretic mobility molecular analysis (GEMMA) and matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization linear time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-lin TOF-MS). Deviations from the theoretical to the actual values showed a maximum of 13.8% and 28.0% for the particle size and MW, respectively. The NIR absorption spectra show a distinct band at 4932 cm(-1) (nu(sym) (NH) + amide II) due to the adsorbed dendrimers. It was found that the absorbance tends to increase with decreasing generation number. On this basis multivariate calibration was performed with the theoretical data and the data obtained by GEMMA and MALDI-lin TOF-MS. All in all, the calculated partial least-squares regression (PLSR) model containing the GEMMA/MALDI-lin TOF-MS reference values showed better results than the models exclusively calculated from the theoretical values. This indicates that the theoretical values do not imply the structural imperfections arising during the synthesis that may be present in the PAMAM-NH2 dendrimers.