Critical assessment of "critical" liquid chromatography of block copolymers

Brief elucidation is presented of potential difficulties the researcher can face in the course of the molecular characterization of block copolymers with help of liquid chromatography under critical conditions. The impediments include the demanding identification of critical conditions, the limited area of applicable polymer molar mass, the high sensitivity of critical conditions toward minute changes in experimental conditions including changes in the interactivity of the column packing, extensive band broadening, limited sample recovery, pressure effects, detection problems, coelution of block copolymers with their noninteractive parent homopolymers, possible effect of the noninteracting chains of block copolymers on the behavior of the interacting blocks, and role of preferential solvation of macromolecules in mixed solvents. These matters may complicate proper data evaluation and challenge the exactness of results obtained. Special attention is paid to the so far neglected phenomena of preferential solvation, which may affect not only detection of block copolymers but also their retention. The latter occurrence is demonstrated by the behavior of both poly(methyl methacrylate)s eluted from bare silica gel in a mixed eluent tetrahydrofuran plus toluene and polystyrenes eluted from silica gel C18 bonded phase with the mobile phase of tetrahydrofuran/n-hexane.