Lauroyl peroxide as thermal initiator of lauryl methacrylate monolithic columns for CEC.

The preparation of lauryl methacrylate (LMA)-based monolithic columns for CEC using lauroyl peroxide (LPO) as thermal initiator of polymerization has been investigated. The influence of initiator amount and composition of porogenic solvent on the physical and electrochromatographic properties of the resulting LMA-based monoliths was evaluated. A comparison with LMA-based columns thermally polymerized with AIBN was performed. At a given porogenic solvent composition, LMA stationary phases initiated with LPO showed higher permeabilities and better efficiency values than those prepared using AIBN as initiator. The optimum polymerization mixture found for LPO initiator provided a minimum plate height of 9.5 mum in a polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon mixture. The produced monolithic beds also exhibited a good run-to-run repeatability and column-to-column and mixture-to-mixture reproducibility, with RSD values below 5.3% for the retention factors, areas and plate heights.