Sulfonated hypercrosslinked adsorbent – synthesis and application in analytical chemistry

Abstract

Chromatographic technique becomes more and more popular in analytical chemistry thanks to the diversity of stationary phases. Among the materials hypercrosslinked poly(styrene-co-divinylbenzene-co-vinylbenzyl chloride) is of great interest because of its exceptional high surface area and chemical resistance. Despite the advantages the polymer, its applications are still limited. Its surface is too hydrophobic for hydrophilic analytes therefore several reactions have been used to modify this material. The most popular reaction is sulfonation in which sulfonate group is introduced on to the material surface. In this study chlorosulfonic acid was used as sulfonation reagent, the resulting polymer has two functional groups: sulfonate and sulfonyl chloride. Then sulfonyl chloride group was hydrolyzed by sodium hydroxide to form sulfonate group. The reaction conditions namely ratios of reagent to polymer and reaction time were investigated for high cation exchange capacity. The home-made sulfonated material was sucessfully used as solid phase extraction (SPE) sorbent with high static capacity (10 meqv/g), dynamic capacity (3.8 meqv/g), fast mass transfer, and high enrichment factor.