Incorporation of metal-organic framework MOFs-5 into the polymer monolith via the surface covalent immobilization method for enhanced capillary liquid chromatographic separation of benzene homologues

Abstract

In this study, metal organic framework material MOFs-5 was immobilized covalently on the surface of polymer monolith to improve the separation efficiency of small molecular compounds in the mode of capillary liquid chromatography (cLC) firstly. Scanning electron microscopy, fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and flow-through property test were applied to characterize the novel [email protected] monolith, confirming that MOFs-5 was effectively immobilized on the surface of polymer monolith via covalent reactions. More importantly, Benzene homologues (benzene and phenol) which could be separated by the commercialized C18 packed chromatographic column have been well separated via the [email protected] monolith. By contrast, there wasn't any separation between benzene and phenol via the original polymer monolith. Moreover, the relative standard deviation was less than 2.2 % for run-to-run. These results showed that the [email protected] monolith is a kind of potential commercialized material for small molecular compound separation in the mode of cLC.