Studies of New Materials for Separations

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This project, directed by Assistant Professor Luis A. Colon at SUNY-Buffalo, is supported by the Analytical and Surface Chemistry Program in the Division of Chemistry. The work will use sol-gel technology to synthesize chemically bonded stationary phases for use with chromatographic methods, particularly high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and electrochromatography in open and packed columns. The incorporation of the desired functional groups into the sol-gel reagents during the fabrication of the silica will create Si-C bonds that do not undergo hydrolysis and provide a material that is multilayered. These characteristics are especially promising for solving the existing problem of suitable packing and surfaces for separations at high pH. Studies will be done of the variables affecting the chemical reactions involved in the glass formation process. A number of techniques (ESCA, SIMS, FTIR and others) will be used to examine the physicochemical properties of the glasses, followed by examination of the chromatographic performance. The overall objective is to correlate the processing parameters, the material characteristics and the separation performance. Liquid chromatographic methods are powerful techniques to separate complex mixtures of compounds into their individual constituents. The purpose of this work is to provide an entirely new way to synthesize the materials upon which the separation takes place. Applications of such separations are wide-spread in areas such as environmental analysis, pharmaceutical analysis, and many others. The focus of the project is to make materials with properties superior to those now available.