Automated Parallel Dialysis for Purification of Polymers.

Area of Science:

• Polymer Chemistry
• Analytical Chemistry
• Chemical Engineering

Background:

• Automated parallel synthesizers (APS) accelerate polymer synthesis but face purification bottlenecks.
• High-throughput/output (HT/O) synthesis requires efficient, unattended purification methods.
• Current purification techniques limit fully automated research and development workflows.

Purpose of the Study:

• To implement and evaluate an automated parallel dialysis (APD) method for simultaneous polymer purification.
• To assess the efficiency of APD in removing unreacted monomers.
• To determine the impact of APD on polymer molar mass and distribution.

Main Methods:

• Simultaneous purification of diverse polymer materials using a commercially available APS.
• Proton nuclear magnetic resonance (¹H-NMR) spectroscopy to quantify monomer removal.
• Size-exclusion chromatography (SEC) to analyze changes in molar mass and molar mass distribution.

Main Results:

• APD effectively removed up to 99% of unreacted monomers from synthesized polymers.
• ¹H-NMR confirmed high monomer removal efficiency.
• SEC analysis showed no significant changes in polymer molar mass or distribution post-dialysis.

Conclusions:

• APD offers a reliable, unattended purification solution for polymer libraries synthesized in APS.
• This method addresses a key limitation in HT/O polymer synthesis.
• APD facilitates the development of fully automated workflows for polymer research and digitalization.