The synthesis of Gemini-type sulfobetaine based hybrid monolith and its application in hydrophilic interaction chromatography for small polar molecular

In this work, a novel Gemini-type sulfobetaine-based hybrid monolith was fabricated by co-polymerization of a homemade Gemini-type sufobetaine, 1,3-bis (N-(3-sulfopropyl)-N-(methacrylic acid-2-hydroxy propyl ester)-N-methyl ammonium)-propane (BSMMP) with vinyltrimethoxysilane (VTMS) and tetramethoxysilane (TMOS) in the presence of 2'-azobis (2-methylpropionamidine) dihydrochloride (V50) as initiator. The recipe of pre-copolymerization solution for monolith preparation was optimized carefully, and the resulting monolith was characterized by scan electron microscope (SEM), fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) and thermal gravimetry analysis (TGA). The results indicated that the optimized monolith possess homogeneous bio-continue pore structure, and a relatively high proportion of the sulfobetaine groups was successfully introduced into the monolith. The results from permeability test shows that the proposed monoliths have excellent permeability within both water rich mobile phase and acetonitrile rich mobile phase, due to the rigid inorganic framework of hybrid monolith. Results showed that the relative standard deviations (RSDs) of run-to-run, column-to-column and batch-to-batch were less than 1.9%, 3.7% and 6.2%, respectively. The lowest plate height value of the column for thiourea was less than 10µm. Furthermore, separating the polar small molecules including nucleosides, the base species, the phenols and the amides were performed within 14min, 22min 18min and 9min on the prepared monolith, respectively, good separation effect on these polar small molecules was found, and remarkable hydrophilic retention behavior was observed when an acetonitrile rich mobile phase was applied, attributing to the existence of strong polar Gemini-type sulfobetaine groups. Finally, the potential application of the resulting monolith in complex sample was successfully demonstrated by separating a BSA digest in gradient elution mode.