Separation performance of a large π-conjugated truxene-based dendrimer as stationary phase for gas chromatography

This work describes the separation performance of the thiophene-functionalized truxene dendrimer (TFTD) as the stationary phase for gas chromatography (GC). An investigation was performed regarding its polarity, column efficiency, separation performance, column repeatability, reproducibility and thermal stability. As a result, the TFTD column showed a high column efficiency of 4420 plates m^-1, and weak polarity on the basis of its McReynolds constants. It exhibited high resolving capability for a wide range of analytes, particularly for phenols, anilines, alkylated and halogenated benzenes, showing distinct advantages over the TFT and commercial columns. Moreover, the TFTD column displayed good column repeatability and reproducibility with RSD values in the range of 0.02-0.19% for intra-day, 0.72-1.7% for inter-day and 1.3-4.9% for between-column, respectively. The present work demonstrates the promising future of π-conjugated thiophene-functionalized dendrimers in separation science.