Incorporation of graphene oxide nanosheets into boronate-functionalized polymeric monolith to enhance the electrochromatographic separation of small molecules.

Graphene oxide (GO) nanosheets were incorporated into an organic polymer monolith containing 3-acrylamidophenylboronic acid (AAPBA) and pentaerythritol triacrylate (PETA) to form a novel monolithic stationary phase for CEC. The effects of the mass ratio of AAPBA/PETA, the amount of GO, and the volume of porogen on the morphology, permeability and pore properties of the prepared poly(AAPBA-GO-PETA) monoliths were investigated. A series of test compounds including amides, alkylbenzenes, polycyclic aromatics, phenols, and anilines were used to evaluate and compare the separation performances of the poly(AAPBA-GO-PETA) and the parent poly(AAPBA-co-PETA) monoliths. The results indicated that incorporation of GO into monolithic column exhibited much higher resolutions (>1.5) and column efficiency (62,000 ∼ 110,000 plates/m for toluene, DMF, formamide, and thiourea) than the poly(AAPBA-co-PETA). The successful application in isocratic separation of peptides suggests the potential of the GO incorporated monolithic column in complex sample analysis. In addition, the reproducibility and stability of the prepared poly(AAPBA-GO-PETA) monolith was assessed. The run-to-run, column-to-column and batch-to-batch reproducibilities of this monolith for alkylbenzenes' retention were satisfactory with the RSDs less than 1.8% (n = 5), 3.7% and 5.6% (n = 3), respectively, indicating the effectiveness and practicability of the proposed method.