A new era in polymer discovery

In the early 1960’s, Jim Waters, owner of a small custom lab instrument business in Framingham, Massachusetts, received a request from John Moore, a chemist at Dow Chemical, to build a special refractometer with a small flow cell.

Within a few months, Jim had refined the design and in 1963 - 50 years ago this year - he introduced the GPC 100, one of the world’s first commercial high-pressure liquid chromatography systems. For the first time, scientists were able to analyse and characterise polymers with a laboratory instrument.

The system cut analysis time from days down to hours. It was a milestone in the history of laboratory science opening the door to new discoveries and eventually reaching beyond the research laboratory into production, quality control, and clinical testing.

The system provides analysis times that are up to five to 20 times faster

However, with the introduction of complex emerging polymers, it quickly became clear that this traditional techniques used for separation were no longer adequate in performing analysis. These techniques were unable achieve the level of resolution required, separations took hours to perform- far too long for current needs- and the analysis process consumed large volumes of solvents.

Last month at Pittcon 2013, Waters in collaboration with Dow Chemical Company, launched a solution that it claims could change this. The ACQUITY Advanced Polymer Chromatography (APC) system was unveiled to the scientific community at the Philadelphia exhibition with claims that it could usher in the “next era in polymer discovery”.

The product was the result of work carried out since 2009 to develop a modern version of the traditional GPC system. The aim was to allow for the characterisation of low to mid-range molecular weight polymers that had become dominant in many product development processes. As the science of size-based analysis of polymers in solution had become an industry standard, it was critical that any modern analysis technique used the same approach.

What Waters and Dow Chemical Company came up with was a technology that provides unprecedented resolution of low molecular weight polymers with analysis times that are up to five to 20 times faster than traditional GPC. In their latest collaboration, the companies aimed to overcome the limitations of current high-speed GPC systems which provide speed but at the cost of less information. Waters claims its APC doesn’t require this compromise.

“Industry is on a constant quest to identify and understand the properties of new materials while making the process of innovation faster, simpler and more sustainable,” said Dow Chemical’s Jim Alexander, associate research & development director of Core R&D Analytical Sciences.

It quickly became clear that this traditional techniques used for separation were no longer adequate

“This new capability will help solve critical R&D challenges, helping scientists to drive to solutions more quickly, with improved data quality.”

The ACQUITY APC system is comprised of a refractive index detector that has been optimised for low dispersion but with the low noise and drift performance required for accurate integration, even at low polymer concentrations. Flow stability is the most important contributor to accurate molecular weight. Calibration of a bank of columns is based on the elution time of the polymers. The long-term flow stability of the APC ensures calibration provides the right molecular weight data for the polymer.

It can be used with the company’s Empower 3 software, which allows users to store and retrieve chromatography data using an embedded, relational database. Empower’s switch-one functionality allows users to add advance polymer analysis to existing Empower installations as well as other separation and detection techniques.

The APC system also features new column technology based on rigid, sub 3 µm, high pore volume bridged-ethyl hybrid particles that provide significant gains in stability and faster separations. The column chemistries are not polymeric gel-based materials, and so are not susceptible to swelling in the different solvents required for diverse polymer analysis needs. This means that scientists can run diver polymer applications on a single system regardless of the solvent or column required.

Ian King, Waters vice president of Separations Technologies, claims that APC represents a major change from soft gel columns. “With APC, scientists can run diverse polymer applications on a single system, on one bank of columns with a variety of solvents,” he said. “Now our customers can significantly improve laboratory efficiency and asset utilisation.”

Timing of the product release was crucial. In recent years, there has been resurgence in polymer development due to major advancements in polymer reactions and a new understanding of the chemical structures of the building blocks of polymers. The industry has also been focusing more on the development of new, sustainable products. Many of these new polymers have a lower molecular weight and are biosourced.

A half-century after John Moore of Dow and Jim Waters collaborated on GPC to change scientific research, the ACQUITY APC hopes to do the same for polymer research. With initial reactions from Pittcon 2013 promising, it still remains to be seen whether the impact of the ACQUITY APC will be as dramatic and lasting as the company’s first collaboration on the GPC 100.