High temperature size exclusion chromatography

Abstract

High temperature size exclusion chromatography (SEC) has been used widely for the characterization of crystalline polymers, for which high temperature operation above the polymer melting temperature is required to dissolve the polymers. However, this high temperature operation has many advantages in SEC separation in addition to merely increasing polymer solubility. At high temperature the eluent viscosity decreases, which in turn decreases the column backpressure and increases the diffusivity of the analytes. Therefore, many reports on the high temperature operation of high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) have focused on shortening the analysis time and enhancing the resolution. However, the application of high temperature SEC analysis to exploit the merits of high temperature operation is scarce. In this article, therefore, we report on a new apparatus design for high temperature SEC.