Poly(vinyl alcohol) Modified Porous Graphitic Carbon Stationary Phase for Hydrophilic Interaction Liquid Chromatography

We report a poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA)-coated porous graphitic carbon (PGC, Hypercarb) packing as a novel stationary phase for hydrophilic interaction liquid chromatography (HILIC). The exterior and the pores of the PGC particles are coated with a thin layer of PVA by soaking the particles in a PVA solution, filtering, and thermally cross linking the PVA. Such PVA coated PGC particles (5.7 mu m diameter), hereinafter called PVA PGC are stable at least through pH 1.0-12.7, can be made in <2 h, and exhibit different selectivity relative to six commercial HILIC phases and bare PGC. To our knowledge, this is the first fully pH-stable, completely neutral HILIC phase. Excellent efficiency stable is observed for polar analytes (similar to 70 000 and 118 000 plates/m for cytosine and resorcinol, respectively). Retention closely resembles standard HILIC behavior. Other substances can also be easily incorporated in the PVA layer; an anion exchange column can be readily made by incorporating diallyldimethylammonium chloride in the PVA coating solution. The ease of preparation without the requirement of synthetic skills or paraphernalia and the possibility of incorporating a variety of modifiers makes this a particularly versatile approach.