Optimization of conditions for detailed compositional analysis of acrylic oligomers by supercritical fluid chromatography with temperature programming or modifier gradient technique

Acrylic oligomers such as pentaerythritolacrylates (PEA), which are often u tilized in the field of functionalized materials, generally consist of very complex homologous series. In this work, measuring conditions for packed-c olumn supercritical fluid chromatographic separation of a complex PEA sampl e manufactured industrially were systematically examined using temperature programming or modifier gradient technique. Under the conditions thus optim ized, not only the main components, PEA homologues containing different num ber of acryloyl groups, but also trace constituents such as their by-produc ts formed through Michael addition reactions were favorably resolved on the resulting chromatograms. The fact that the coefficient of variation (CV) f or relative intensity of each peak was approximately 3 - 6% even for the mi nor components suggested that detailed compositional analysis of PEAs could be per-formed precisely by the proposed method.