Effect of interdetector peak broadening and volume in size-exclusion chromatography with dual viscometric–concentration detection

Abstract

For a polymer sample with a molecular mass distribution which obeys the log-normal function, the effect of intra- and extracolumn peak broadening, combined with the effect of the error in the interdetector volume determination, on uncorrected data of size-exclusion chromatography with the dual concentration–viscosity detection was theoretically examined. If the separation is not perfect and peaks recorded by the differential refractometric and viscometric detector are broadened to a different degree and/or an error in the interdetector volume occurs, the dependences of the detected molecular mass on elution volume are rotated and deformed. The error in the determination of uncorrected molecular mass averages for the whole polymer from the dual detection data is demonstrated and the effect of the Mark–Houwink–Kuhn–Sakurada exponent on uncorrected data was demonstrated.