Unraveling the comonomer distribution in ethylene - vinyl ester terpolymers through liquid chromatography with infrared detection.

Polyolefins are the most commercially relevant polymers by volume. A readily available feedstock and their tailor-made microstructure allow to adapt polyolefins to many fields of application. Important molecular design features of olefin copolymers are the molar mass distribution (MMD) with the corresponding average values, comonomer type, chemical composition distribution (CCD) with the corresponding average and the tacticity distribution (TD). Advanced separation techniques i.e., high-temperature gel permeation chromatography (HT-GPC) as well as its hyphenation with high-temperature high performance liquid chromatography (HT-HPLC) in the form of high-temperature two-dimensional liquid chromatography (HT 2D-LC) have been successfully applied in this work. This allowed to deeply analyze the molecular heterogeneities of complex polyolefin terpolymers consisting of ethylene, vinyl acetate and branched vinyl ester monomers. By using filter-based infrared detection, the capabilities of HT-GPC are further extended so that the distribution of methyl- and carbonyl groups could be obtained along the molar mass axis. Using porous graphitic carbon (PGC) as a stationary phase for HT-HPLC separation provided information about the CCD of these complex polyolefins from experimental data as part of the hyphenated approach of HT 2D-LC. The latter revealed the full MMD x CCD distribution function, which is the key for a comprehensive analysis of the bivariate molecular structure of the polyolefin terpolymers.
Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare the following financial interests/personal relationships which may be considered as potential competing interests: Jan-Hendrik Arndt reports financial support was provided by Braskem SA. Guru Geertz reports financial support was provided by Braskem SA. Robert Bruell reports financial support was provided by Braskem SA. Sampat Singh Bhati reports a relationship with Braskem Europe that includes: employment. Hadi Mohammadi, Manoela Ellwanger Cangussu has patent #WO 2021/064,474 A1 issued to Braskem SA.
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