Project Details:

SEC/GPC of polystyrenes

Obtaining accurate and precise information on the molar mass averages by size exclusion chromatography (SEC) is important not only from the point of view of polymer synthesis but also in industry. SEC has a long history since it has appeared in the scientific area; however, sometimes the values obtained by SEC have large errors, and relative standard deviations of the molar mass averages obtained by SEC exceed 10%. Round robin tests of several common polystyrenes with numerous laboratories is very important to make clear the problems concerning the SEC procedures and for future SEC standardization. This is a RRT project with polystyrene, which is generally used for SEC column calibration. Initially, four samples were dispatched to 15 labs but new participants keep contacting us. The first round is expected to be finished in the first months of 1999. Results received so far exhibit remarkable scatter in the case of polymer samples with a low molecular-weight tail. The PS RRT will be a very important instrument to study the effect of standardization on the reproducibility of data. Also some basic methodological questions like the base line adjustement will be elucidated.