Solvothermal-assisted in situ rapid growth of octadecylamine functionalized polydopamine-based permanent coating as stationary phase for open-tubular capillary electrochromatography

In recent years, mussel-inspired polydopamine (PDA) based materials have been widely used as stationary phases for open-tubular capillary electrochromatography (OT-CEC) because of their various excellent properties. Nevertheless, the traditional synthesis routes of functionalized PDA-based capillary columns usually are time-consuming and limited in aqueous solutions. Herein, we report a facile and rapid route to prepare octadecylamine (ODA) functionalized PDA coated OT-CEC columns in organic solvents via a novel one-step in situ solvothermal-assisted coating strategy. Through this developed solvothermal-assisted approach, the growth rate of ODA/PDA coating was significantly speeded up and their hybrid coating process on the capillary inner surface could be rapidly completed in 60 min. The successful preparation of the solvothermal-assisted ODA/PDA hybrid coating were systematically characterized and confirmed by several methods. The influence of the preparation parameters on the formation of hybrid coating and the separation ability of the ODA/PDA modified columns were systematically explored. Consequently, the high-efficiency baseline separation of four kinds of neutral, acidic and basic analytes were achieved based on the ODA/PDA modified columns. The repeatability of the solvothermal-assisted ODA/PDA coated column was also studied, and the relative standard deviations for intra-day, inter-day and column-to-column were all less than 5%. Additionally, the solvothermal-assisted ODA/PDA modified column exhibited good stability and long lifetime.