Adsorption of polypropylene and polyethylene on liquid chromatographic column packings

A group of zeolites and a 3D nanoporous metal-organic material RPM-1 were tested as column packings for adsorption of isotactic polypropylene and linear polyethylene from dilute solutions. It was found that polyethylene is fully or partially retained from thermodynamically good solvents (1,1,2,2- tetrachloroethylene, 1,4-dimethylbenzene, diphenylether, 1,2-dichlorobenzene and 1,3-dichlorobenzene) at temperatures of 115°C or 140°C, when a specific type of zeolite with pore sizes 5-6 Å hos been used as the column packing. Polypropylene was fully retained in another type of zeolite with pores of 7-12 Å, when diphenylether was used as the mobile phase. As far as known, this is the first system sorbent - mobile phase, where adsorption of polypropylene was observed.