Preparation of a poly(styrene-co-DPHA-co-EDMA) monolith and its application for the separation of small molecules and biomacromolecules by HPLC.

A high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) monolithic column was prepared by redox polymerization of styrene, dipentaerythritol hexaacrylate (DPHA) and ethylene glycol dimethacrylate (EDMA) in a porogen system of n-propanol/PEG400. The monolith was characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), mercury intrusion porosimetry (MIP) and the results indicated that the monolith had a stable and homogeneous structure. The porosity of the monolithic column was 75.86% and average pore diameter was 2.1µm. Several alkylbenzenes and anilines were used to evaluate the column performance in terms of hydrophobicity. Then the column was applied to separate small molecules including phytosterol and BSA tryptic digest. Finally, five standard proteins, egg white and plasma were separated respectively and high separation capacity of protein was obtained.