A retrospective look at developments in size exclusion chromatography from the early Hamielec research era to the present day

Abstract

AbstractAt the start of Archie Hamielec's research career, size exclusion chromatography (SEC) (including gel permeation chromatography [GPC]) was in its infancy as an analytical and preparative laboratory technique in polymer science and engineering. As described below, Archie Hamielec saw its potential early in his academic career and was among the group of pioneers who took it from a developing technique to what it is now. His group's work was instrumental in improving the understanding of the mechanism of separation in SEC and setting up best procedures for sample handling. In addition, much work was done to assess detectors to improve data collection and to obtain consistent/reliable measurements. Importantly, he established it as a key method for obtaining molecular size information to support research in polymer reaction engineering. Nowadays we take it for granted that we can use SEC to obtain molecular weight data rapidly and reliably with user‐friendly computer‐aided analyses. This ease of routine practicality stems from the base that the early researchers built. Although now it is a well‐developed (almost ‘black box’) method there are still areas of novel interest into analysis of complex polymer samples. This has led to modern developments forging ahead in expanding the applicability of SEC as an analytical technique with the exploitation of multi‐detector systems and novel detectors.