Efficient separation of small molecules using a large surface area hypercrosslinked monolithic polymer capillary column.

Monolithic poly(styrene-co-vinylbenzyl chloride-co-divinylbenzene) precursor capillary columns have been prepared and then hypercrosslinked to afford a monolith containing an array of small pores. This monolithic column exhibited a surface area of 663 m(2)/g or more than 1 order of magnitude larger than measured for the precursor column. Because it contains mesopores, this monolithic column affords good separation of uracil and alkylbenzenes in isocratic mobile phase mode and also proved useful for separations in size exclusion mode. A column efficiency as high as 73,000 plates/m was determined for uracil. In contrast, the presence of mesopores in this hypercrosslinked monolithic column had a detrimental effect on the separation of proteins.