SEPARATION SPEED IN THERMAL FIELD-FLOW FRACTIONATION

The effects of the temperature drop, channel thickness, solvent choice , and molecular mass and chemical nature of the polymer species on the separation speed in thermal field flow fractionation are investigated . The trends observed in the experiments are in good agreement with th eoretical predictions. Separation speed was found to increase with the temperature gradient and the molecular mass of the polymer samples. F urthermore, the separation speed depends strongly on the chemical comp osition of the polymer and the solvent. The ability to fractionate pol ymer samples according to their chemical nature is demonstrated with t he separation of four different polymer standards of approximately the same molecular mass.