Preparation of monodispersed vinylpyridine–divinylbenzene porous copolymer resins and their application to high-performance liquid chromatographic separation of aromatic amines

Abstract For the separation of aromatic amines, two types of monodispersed porous polymer resins were prepared by the copolymerization of 2-vinylpyridine and 4-vinylpyridine with divinylbenzene in the presence of template silica gel particles (particle size 5 μm), followed by dissolution of the template silica gel in an alkaline solution. The transmission electron micrographs and the scanning electron micrograph revealed that these templated polymer resins have a spherical morphology with a good monodispersity and porous structure. Using these monodispersed polymer resins, the high-performance liquid chromatographic separation of aromatic amines in the mobile phases of pHs 2.0, 2.9, 4.1, 7.2 and 11.7 were carried out. The 2-vinylpyridine–divinylbenzene copolymer resins showed slightly stronger retentions for aromatic amines than the 4-vinylpyridine–divinylbenzene copolymer resins. Under acidic conditions (around pH 2.0), aniline and the toluidines showed no retention on these copolymer resins due to the repulsion between the cationic forms of these amines and pyridinium cations in the stationary phase, whereas less basic aromatic amines or non-basic acetanilide showed slight retentions. Above pH 4.1, the separation of aromatic amines with these polymer resins showed a typical reversed-phase mode separation. Therefore, the separation patterns of aromatic amines are effectively tunable by changing the pH value of the mobile phases. A good separation of eight aromatic amines was achieved at pH 2.9 using the 2-vinylpyridine–divinylbenzene copolymer resins.