Synthesis and chromatographic evaluation of poly(pentabromostyrene)-silica composite: A versatile stationary phase for separating both polar and non-polar aromatic compounds

Abstract Polymer-silica composite materials have been witnessed as one of the most promising chromatographic packing materials. The demands of novel stationary phases are always existing due to the requirements for the separation of special samples. In our present work, the novel poly(pentabromostyrene)-silica composite stationary phases were successfully prepared by surface initial free-radical polymerization. The polymer chains bonding on the surface of the poly(pentabromostyrene) contain plenty of phenyl moiety, which provide hydrophobic and π-π interactions between the stationary phase and analytes. Besides, the bromide atoms, existing in the polymer, provide extra polar interaction with polar or easily polarized analytes. Compared with the typical C18 stationary phase, the novel stationary phase showed special separation selectivity. Samples, including polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, phenols, anilines, amino acids, halogenated benzenes, acetophenone derivatives, benzene homologous compounds, were all well separated by the new stationary phase. Also, the great stability (0.13% ≤ RSDs ≤ 0.98%, n = 5) of packed columns and the good synthesis repeatability were demonstrated. Finally, the new columns were applied to the separation of fullerenes. The loading ratio reached 2.67% (36 mg of fullerenes was loaded onto the column packed with 1.35 g stationary phase), with high yield (86.3%) of high pure C60 (> 95%). This novel stationary phase has a great potential to be a complementary to traditional C18 column and a special column for fullerenes separation.