Patent ID: 6866786
Filing Date: 2005-03-15
Classification: B01D,B01J,C40B,G01N,Y10T

Abstract:
1. A method for characterizing a library of polymer samples in a multi-dimensional liquid chromatography system, the method comprising: (i) providing a library of polymer samples comprising four or more different polymer samples for analysis in a multi-dimensional liquid chromatography system comprising a first dimension and a second dimension, one of the first or second dimensions being adapted for size exclusion chromatography; (ii) injecting a polymer sample of the library into a first-dimension mobile phase of the first dimension of the multi-dimensional liquid chromatography system; (iii) chromatographically separating at least one sample component of the injected polymer sample from other sample components thereof in a first-dimension liquid chromatography column, such that a first-dimension mobile phase eluent from the first-dimension column comprises two or more first-dimension separated sample components; (iv) sampling at least ten discrete volumes of the first-dimension mobile phase eluent, such that at least a portion of each of the first-dimension separated sample components are sampled; (v) injecting the at least ten sampled volumes of the first-dimension mobile phase eluent directly into a second-dimension mobile phase of the second dimension of the multi-dimensional liquid chromatography system; (vi) chromatographically separating at least one subcomponent of the sampled portions from other subcomponents thereof in a second-dimension liquid chromatography column, such that a second-dimension mobile phase eluent from the second-dimension column comprises two or more second-dimension separated subcomponents for each of the sampled portions of each of the first-dimension separated sample components; (vii) detecting a property of the second-dimension separated subcomponents in the second-dimension mobile phase eluent using a flow-through detector; and (viii) repeating steps (ii) through (vii) for each of the four or more polymer samples of the library, successive polymer samples being injected into the first-dimension mobile phase of the first dimension at intervals of not more than about 30 minutes per sample.