Poster: temperature calibration for CCD in solution based separation

By Laura Santonja, Benjamín Monrabal. Polymer Char, Valencia, Spain.

Improved temperature calibration for CCD in solution-based separation techniques

Abstract:

Controlling the chemical composition distribution (CCD) in polyolefins is important for reliable performance, as it directly affects properties such as crystalline, mechanical strength, and processability. Crystallization Elution Fractionation (CEF) and Temperature Rising Elution Fractionation (TREF) separate polymer chains based on crystallinity and Thermal Gradient Interaction Chromatograph (TGIC) based on adsorption. For all those techniques accurate temperature calibration is essential for reliable results of the CCD of the components across the elution temperature.

The robustness of a two-point temperature calibration has been already demonstrated using a non-crystallizable reference and a high-density polyehtylene, and it is applied for the same method for inter laboratory sample comparison. The election of a non crystallizable reference for one of the points is more straightforward and avoids the need of obtaining narrow crystalline standards. This work introduces an improved temperature calibration approach using two polyelthylene standards with low and high crystallizatibiliy, which tracks temperature changes more precisely and prevents distortion of elution profiles at some analytical conditions.