ABSTRACT
Gel permeation chromatography (GPC) is a type of liquid chromatography. Different from other chromatographic methods, GPC involves the separation of molecules with various sizes, with no dependence on the interaction between the molecule and the mobile or stationary phase; nevertheless, it does rely on the different sizes of molecules in a dilute solution. From the principle of GPC, a dilute polymer solution is passed through a column by a pump, during which molecules with different molecular weights are separated and detected. A GPC instrument comprises four systems: flow system, separation system, detection system, and supplements. The optimal processing conditions of a polymer can be determined by sampling and analysis during processing. Similar to other chromatograms, a GPC chromatogram plots the change in the signal intensity versus the retention value. For monodisperse samples, the elution volume can be obtained from the GPC chromatogram, and the molecular weight can be directly calculated from the calibration curve.
