I have a viscous sample of nitrocellulose in acetone/IPA from 2 different vendors. I want to check the molecular weight using GPC. Is there a specific column and method that i need to use?
Possibly of some interest concerning to your query, cf.: Elisabeth Sjöholm, "Size exclusion chromatography of cellulose and cellulose derivatives", Ch. 12, in: Chi-san Wu (Ed.), "Handbook of Size Exclusion Chromatography and Related Techniques", 2nd ed., series: "Chromatographic Science" (Vol. 91), Marcel Dekker Inc., New York and Basel, 2004; and refs. quoted herein.
If your samples are viscous enough， or the Mw is about 103~107, Ubbelohde viscosity meter can be tried. Before using the GPC you'd better roughly know the Mw range of the sample. Then a suited colum can be choosed. A general colum using THF/DMF as eluted liquid is applicable.
The biggest issues you face here relate to MSDS - the potentially explosive nature of nitrocellulose and the volatility of acetone and IPA. Hence anything I say has no liability for potential consequences if you move forward. As Liu indicates there may be other routes to the MW that do not involve GPC. These should be preferred.
if the sample is already in a viscous solution form with acetone and IPA I would suggest using acetone as a mobile phase - as long as the nitrocellulose solution remains completely soluble when diluted with acetone. The reason is that it’s easier to find standards (PMMA narrow & broad or PMMA series) and columns that will work with a mobile phase of acetone than a mobile phase of IPA. As for columns, I would suggest beginning with standard organic GPC columns using a polystyrene divinylbenzene gel, such as Malvern’s T6000M columns.
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Physical Sciences
- Materials Science
- Material Characterization