Application possibilities of preparative size exclusion chromatography to analytical problems in polymer science

Abstract The application possibilities of preparative size exclusion chromatography for the detailed analysis of polymer analytes are discussed. Using the example of star-shaped polymer architecture, the possibilities of utilizing fractions obtained from preparative size exclusion chromatography and their subsequent off-line characterization with a variety of hyphenated analytic techniques are discussed and compared to one another. It was, for instance, possible to obtain an absolute SEC calibration for the investigated star-shaped polymers that showed very good agreement with theoretical expected values and values obtained by absolute molecular weight determination techniques by analyzing fractions of different molecular weights of this polymer architecture by MALDI-TOFMS in order obtain the M p values required for SEC calibrations. Moreover, the star-shaped polymers were investigated by SEC-viscometry in order to obtain their absolute molecular weight. All analytical results are compared to each other and possibilities as well as limitations are discussed.