Synthesis of mesoporous silica microspheres and its application for reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography
Subject Areas :کورش تبار حیدر 1 , زینب دین محمدپور 2 , مریم افشارپور 3
1 - دانشیار شیمی تجزیه، گروه شیمی تجزیه، پژوهشکده فناوریهای پاک، پژوهشگاه شیمی و مهندسی شیمی ایران، تهران، ایران
2 - دانشجوی کارشناسی ارشد شیمی تجزیه، گروه شیمی تجزیه، پژوهشکده فناوریهای پاک، پژوهشگاه شیمی و مهندسی شیمی ایران، تهران، ایران
3 - استادیار شیمی معدنی، گروه شیمی معدنی، پژوهشکده توسعه فرایندهای شیمیایی، پژوهشگاه شیمی و مهندسی شیمی ایران، تهران، ایران
Keywords: HPLC, Mesoporous silica, spherical, reversed-phas,
Abstract :
Silica is the most used support for high-performance liquid chromatography columns. Mesoporous silica has attracted much attention due to its properties. Columns with spherical shaped mesoporous silica particles are superior for chromatographic applications because they provide higher efficiency and lower back-pressure compared to irregular particles. In this work, mesoporous silica microspheres were prepared via a two-step synthesis process by using tetraethyl orthosilicate, amphiphilic triblock copolymer, cetyltrimethylammonium bromide, and ethanol. To obtain mesoporous silica spheres with mean particle size about 5.5 μm )obtained by scanning electron microscopy), specific surface area about 670 m2/g and pore diameter about 7 nm )obtained by N2 adsorption-desorption), parameters of synthesis were optimized. After surface functionalization with C18 )about 21% C, obtained by elemental analysis), they were slurry packed into a column )25 cm × 4.0 mm i.d.) and used for separation of alkylbenzenes containing 1-5 carbons, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, and pyridine derivatives mixtures. Phenol and pyridine mixture were used for investigation of active silanols. The synthesized C18-modified mesoporous silica microspheres showed good, repeatable and stable results for separation of above compounds. Among them, the highest efficiency of the column is for benzene with 1484 theoretical plates. Resolutions of copmounds are between 1 and 4. According to tailing factors, peaks are almost symmetric, except pyridine derivatives that show a little tailing.