Preparative frontal size-exclusion chromatography of mineral ions on neutral hypercrosslinked polystyrene

Hypercrosslinked polystyrene, being the first and the only one accessible for water microporous hydrophobic polymeric sorbent, was found to provide efficient separation of inorganic electrolytes under conditions of a frontal size-exclusion chromatography (SEC). The process, based on the difference in size of hydrated competing ions, permits separations of many pairs of salts, acids, and bases. The productivity of separation increases with the concentration of the feed solution rising. Remarkably, concentrations of the separated components in corresponding fractions may substantially exceed those in the initial mixture, which can be explained in terms of a conception of an ideal separation process.