Separation of copoly(styrene/acrylonitrile) samples according to composition under reversed phase conditions

Summary

Copoly(styrene/acrylonitrile) samples (S/AN) have been repeatedly separated according to composition by gradient HPLC with alkane hydrocarbons as a starting eluent A and dichloromethane (DCM) or tetrahydrofuran (THF) as a solvent B. In these systems, retention increased with AN content of the copolymers. The chemical nature of the column packings used had almost no influence on the retention of S/AN samples. The present paper shows thatn-pentane andn-heptane, when used in a given volumetric gradient with DCM+20% methanol as a solvent B, lead to identical solution characteristics of S/AN on silica columns. A similar result was obtained on C18 columns withn-heptane or cyclohexane, whereas gradient elution with toluene as a starting eluent caused insufficient resolution. Reversed phase separation of S/AN copolymers could be achieved on polystyrene gel columns through gradients with methanol as a starting eluent and DCM or THF as a solvent B. In both systems, retention decreased with increasing AN content of the copolymers. The elution characteristics were almost linear in the range 0–20 wt% AN. This behaviour can be understood in the context of polymer solubility: in both systems, the solubility borderline of S/AN has a distinct maximum at about 25 wt% AN. Reversed phase separation was achieved at the lefthand slope of these curves where the dissolution of a sample with a higher AN content requires less DCM or THF solvent than the dissolution of copolymers which are poorer in AN. This idea predicts that samples with more than 25 wt% AN should elute later than S/AN whose composition is near to the solubility maximum. This indeed was found with a copolymer containing 36.2 wt% AN.