Composite sorbents for liquid chromatography. A size exclusion study of dextran gel incorporated into porous solid particles

The novel class of column packings for high-performance liquid chromatography was prepared. These materials are formed by silica-, polyhydroxyethylmethacrylate-, or carbon-based macroporous solid particles with pores filled by a soft dextran network. They were examined by inverse size-exclusion chromatography. The analytes, which are small enough to penetrate the dextran network, can interact selectively with the support surface. Such interactions may be either suppressed by an appropriate deactivation of the support surface prior to dextran incorporation or utilized for special applications in which retention of small molecules of analytes is combined with steric exclusion of large molecules of interference.