High Selectivity of A Novel Pillar[5]arene with Ester Units as a Gas Chromatographic Stationary Phase toward Aromatic Isomers.

This work reports the first example of employing ester-functionalized pillar[5]arene (P5A-C10-OAc) stationary phase for gas chromatography (GC) separations. The as-fabricated P5A-C10-OAc column achieved improved column efficiency of 4270 plates/m and separation performance in contrast to the P5-C10-Br column. The P5A-C10-OAc column showed good separation performance for a wide range of analytes such as alkanes, bromoalkanes, ketones, fatty acid methyl esters, aldehydes, alcohols, halobenzenes, anilines, phenols, naphthalenes, and showed sharp and symmetrical peak shapes for analytes that are liable to peak-tailing in GC analysis. As testified by the challenging isomer mixtures (bromonitrobenzene, chloronitrobenzene, bromobenzaldehyde, chlorobenzaldehyde, nitrobenzaldehyde), the P5A-C10-OAc column exhibited comprehensively higher separation capability than the P5A-C10-Br, P5A-C10 and commercial HP-35 columns. This work demonstrates the great potential of pillararene-based stationary phases as a new type of stationary phases for GC separations.