Macroporous polymeric stationary-phase rod as continuous separation medium for reversed-phase chromatography.

A macroporous poly(styrene-co-divinylbenzene) rod has been prepared by a free-radical polymerization of a mixture containing monomers, initiator, and porogenic solvent in the confines of a chromatographic column and used for the first time in the very fast reversed-phase HPLC of proteins. Characterization of the pore structure of the continuous rod by mercury intrusion porosimetry revealed a large volume of pores with a diameter of about 1 micron to pores below 100 nm. Size exclusion chromatography and scanning electron microscopy confirmed the unusual pore size distribution. The presence of large pores make the rod easily permeable to eluents, and therefore, the back pressure of the rod column is modest even at high flow rates. The efficiency of the polymerized column is almost independent of the flow rate. The slope of the line showing capacity factor vs composition of the mobile phase was determined for several proteins, and a gradient for the separation of their mixtures was developed. Excellent separation was achieved even at a high flow rate of 25 mL/min as documented by the resolution data. Tripling the length of the column did not improve the column resolution in protein separation.