One-pot preparation of mercaptotetrazole-silica hybrid monoliths by the thiol-ene click reaction for mixed-mode capillary liquid chromatography.

A novel mercaptotetrazole-silica hybrid monolithic column was prepared for capillary liquid chromatography, in which the thiol-end mercaptotetrazole was mixed with hydrolyzed γ-methacryloxypropyltrimethoxysilane and tetramethyloxysilane for the co-polycondensation and thiol-ene click reaction in a one-pot process. The effects of the molar ratio of silanes, the amount of mercaptotetrazole, and the volume of porogen on the morphology, permeability and pore properties of the as-prepared mercaptotetrazole-silica hybrid monoliths were investigated in detail. A series of test compounds including alkylbenzenes, amides and anilines were employed for evaluating the retention behaviors of the mercaptotetrazole-silica hybrid monolithic columns. The results demonstrated that the mercaptotetrazole-silica hybrid monoliths exhibited hydrophobic, hydrophilic as well as ion-exchange interaction. The run-to-run, column-to-column and batch-to-batch reproducibilities of the mercaptotetrazole-silica hybrid monoliths were satisfactory with the relative standard deviations less than 1.4 (n = 5), 3.9 (n = 3) and 4.0% (n = 5), respectively. In addition, the mercaptotetrazole-silica hybrid monolith was further applied to the separation of sulfonamides, nucleobases and protein tryptic digests. These successful applications confirmed the promising potential of the mercaptotetrazole-silica hybrid monolith in the separation of complex samples.