USE OF LABORATORY ROBOTICS FOR GEL-PERMEATION CHROMATOGRAPHY SAMPLE PREPARATION - AUTOMATION OF HIGH-TEMPERATURE POLYMER DISSOLUTION

Manual preparation of polymer samples for molecular weight characteriz ation by solution methods such as gel permeation chromatography (GPC) is a time-consuming, labor-intensive, and redundant task. Preparation of samples for high-temperature GPC characterization further complicat es the procedure. A typical manual high-temperature sample preparation exposes the analyst to both hot surfaces and solvent vapors. An autom ated system to prepare samples for high temperature GPC analysis has b een developed. The system is based on a Zymark laboratory robotic syst em, and custom hardware peripherals developed at The Dow Chemical Comp any. The automated procedure performs all the steps required to prepar e samples for high-temperature GPC analysis, including the hot steps. The samples were analyzed using the Waters 150-C GPC in combination wi th the differential refractive index (DRI) and low-angle laser light s cattering (LALLS) detectors to demonstrate the reproducibility and rel iability of the automated procedure. The system hardware, software opt ions, and performance are presented in this paper. (C) 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.