Synthesis of carbon dots-based covalent organic nanomaterial as stationary phase for open tubular capillary electrochromatography.

The transformation of zero-dimensional carbon dots (CDs) to cross-linked nanomaterials is rare. In this work, a novel carbon dots-based covalent organic nanomaterial (CON CDs-TAPB) consisted of 1,3,5-tris(4-aminophenyl)-benzene (TAPB) and carbon dots (CDs) through facile Schiff-base reaction was synthesized and then employed as a stationary phase for open-tubular capillary electrochromatography (OT-CEC). The CON CDs-TAPB and the CDs-TAPB coated column were characterized through Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), UV-spectra experiments and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). Thanks to CON CDs-TAPB unique structure and abundant accessibility and interaction sites, the prepared column exhibited a satisfactory separation ability towards analytes including parabens, phenolic compounds. Among all analytes, the highest column efficiency was over 1.6 × 105 plates·m-1. In addition, affording methylbenzene loading capacity of 156.9 pmole, surpassing most of those materials-based OT-CEC reported thus far. Thus, the prepared carbon dots-based covalent organic nanomaterial (CON CDs-TAPB) gave a potential as a stationary phase in the separation science.