A novel chip device based on wired capillary packed with high performance polymer-based monolith for HPLC: reproducibility in preparation processes to obtain long columns

This report describes the development of novel wired chip devices for mu-HPLC analyses. The monolithic capillary column to be wired was prepared using a tri-functional epoxy monomer, tris(2,3-epoxypropyl)isocyanurate with a diamine, 4-[(4-aminocyclohexyl)methyl]cyclohexylamine. The prepared column was evaluated by SEM observation of the sectional structure of column and micro-HPLC. In addition, the reproducibility in the preparation of long capillary columns having nearly 1 m length was extensively examined for applications of novel wired chip devices. The authors demonstrated that the monolithic structure of the prepared long capillary could be finely controlled under the strictly maintained operational conditions and thus the relative standard deviation (RSD) of the column properties such as the number of theoretical plates, retention factor, and permeability could be well controlled to become less than 10%. Furthermore, the wired chip device column showed that its high performance was kept even after chip preparation.