UCT Silane Cited in Novel Separations Article

UCT is world renowned as the premier manufacturer of the finest specialty chemicals including silanes and siloxanes. Researchers in the field of separation science looking to advance the boundaries require the finest of materials for their studies. In a recent paper authored by Patrizia Simone et al., (Journal of Chromatography A ((2017) 1498, 46-55) a UCT silane (N-trimethoxysilylpropyl)-polyethylenimine was utilized as an important reagent in the production of a monolith for separations of small molecules and intact proteins.

Monolithic materials are versatile adsorbents widely employed in separation science, sample preparation and as supports for flow through applications (e.g. heterogeneous catalysis, ion-exchange, solid-phase extraction, etc.). Interest around their preparation and applications has been rapidly growing in recent years. In the above noted article, capillary methacrylate-based monoliths were prepared for high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) separation of both small molecules and large biomolecules. An efficient grafting to/from synthetic approach was adopted introducing a network of activated sites in the inner wall surface using the UCT silanization agent.  Copolymerization of lauryl methacrylate monomer and 1,6-hexanediol dimethacrylate cross-linker in the presence of porogenic solvents was executed under continuous x-ray exposure with highly efficient conversion yield results.

In addition, studies into the morphology and porous structure of the resulting monoliths were investigated by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and 1H NMR cryoporosimetry. Using chromatographic studies, the new capillary monolith columns demonstrated very high kinetic performance (with efficiency larger than 100,000 theoretical plate/m for small molecules at optimum mobilephase linear velocity of about 0.5 mm/s) and showed also demonstrated excellent mechanical stability and repeatability. The new methacrylate-based monolithic capillary columns were shown be successfully employed for efficient reversed-phase separation of intact proteins and peptides. This article demonstrates that when researchers working at the cutting edge of separation sciences require the finest of specialty chemical, they turn first to UCT. For more information about UCT specialty chemicals, silanes and siloxanes please visit  https://specialties.unitedchem.com/products/silane-71.