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Ester-functionalized pillar[6]arene as the gas chromatographic stationary phase with high-resolution performance towards the challenging isomers of xylenes, diethylbenzenes, and ethyltoluenes

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Abstract

This work presents the first example of the utilization of polar ester group functionalized pillar[6]arene (P6A-C10-OAc) as a stationary phase for capillary gas chromatographic (GC) separations. The statically coated P6A-C10-OAc column showed a high column efficiency of 5393 plates/m and moderate polar nature. Its resolving capability and retention behaviors were investigated for a mixture of 20 analytes and more than a dozen isomers from apolar to polar in nature. As evidenced, the P6A-C10-OAc column achieved high-resolution separations of all the analytes and good inertness. Importantly, it exhibited distinctly advantageous performance for high resolution of the challenging isomers of xylenes, diethylbenzenes, ethyltoluenes, and halobenzenes over the commercial HP-5 (5% phenyl dimethyl polysiloxane), HP-35 (25% phenyl dimethyl polysiloxane), and PEG-20M (polyethylene glycol) columns.

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Funding

The work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 21705072), the Colleges and Universities in Henan Province Key Science and Research Project (No. 23A150008), and the Training Project for Youth Backbone Teachers in Colleges and Universities of Luoyang Normal University.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Liaoning Province Professional and Technical Innovation Center for Fine Chemical Engineering of Aromatics Downstream, School of Petrochemical Engineering, Shenyang University of Technology, Liaoyang, 111003, Liaoning, People’s Republic of China

    Yanli Song, Wen Li, Mengyi Ba, Yuanyuan Zhang, Haixin Liu, Xiang Xu & Zhiqiang Cai

  2. College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Henan Key Laboratory of Function-Oriented Porous Materials, Luoyang Normal University, Luoyang, 471934, People’s Republic of China

    Haoyu Su, Xianming Liu & Tao Sun

Authors
  1. Yanli Song
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  2. Wen Li
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Contributions

Yanli Song: investigation, methodology, formal analysis, visualization, validation, writing—original draft, writing—review and editing. Wen Li: investigation, methodology, formal analysis, validation. Mengyi Ba: methodology, visualization. Yuanyuan Zhang: validation, formal analysis. Haixin Liu: visualization, formal analysis. Xiang Xu: methodology, investigation. Haoyu Su: methodology, investigation. Zhiqiang Cai: conceptualization, methodology, supervision, resources, funding acquisition, writing—review and editing. Xianming Liu: methodology, supervision. Tao Sun: conceptualization, methodology, supervision, resources, funding acquisition, writing—review and editing.

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Song, Y., Li, W., Ba, M. et al. Ester-functionalized pillar[6]arene as the gas chromatographic stationary phase with high-resolution performance towards the challenging isomers of xylenes, diethylbenzenes, and ethyltoluenes. Anal Bioanal Chem 416, 1321–1335 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00216-024-05146-7

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