A novel ionic liquid monolithic column and its separation properties in capillary electrochromatography

Highlights: ► ILs as functional monomer for capillary monolithic column. ► Separation of alkylbenzenes, thiourea analogues, and amino acids. ► The column generate a stable reversed EOF from pH 2.0 to 12.0. ► The column efficiency of 147,000 plates m−1 was obtained for thiourea. - Abstract: A novel ionic liquid (IL) monolithic capillary column was successfully prepared by thermal free radical copolymerization of IL (1-vinyl-3-octylimidazolium chloride, ViOcIm+Cl−) together with lauryl methacrylate (LMA) as the binary functional monomers and ethylene dimethacrylate (EDMA) as the cross-linker in binary porogen. The proportion of monomers, porogens and cross-linker in the polymerization mixture was optimized in detail. The resulting IL-monolithic column could not only generate a stable reversed electroosmotic flow (EOF) in a wide pH range (2.0–12.0), but also effectively eliminate the wall adsorption of the basic analytes. The obtained IL-monolithic columns were examined by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR). These results indicated that the IL-monolithic capillary column possessed good pore properties, mechanical stability and permeability. The column performance was also evaluated by separating different kinds of compounds, such as alkylbenzenes, thiourea and its analogues, and amino acids. The lowest plate height of ∼6.8 μm was obtained, which corresponded to column efficiency (theoretical plates, N) of ∼147,000 plates m−1 for thiourea. ILs, as a new type of functional monomer, present a promising option in the fabrication of the organic polymer-based monolithic columns in CEC.