HPLC Analysis of Mixtures of Acrylamide and Quaternary Ammonium Cationic Monomers

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Abstract
The HPLC separation of acrylamide from the quaternary ammonium cationic monomers dimethylaminoethyl acrylate and dimethylaminoethyl methacrylate has been investigated. It was found that a cyano-bonded silica stationary phase provided superior separations relative to an octyldecyl-bonded coated substrate. For either stationary phase, a binary mixture of acetonitrile and water gave far improved elution characteristics to a methanol-water mobile phase. An optimum acetonitrile-water ratio of 50:50 vol% was identified for the CN-coated sorbents. Dibutylamine was also used as an additive to reduce the adsorption of the cationic monomer, with a concentration of 0.01 M providing the best chromatograms. The mobile phase pH, and the acid used to adjust the pH, were also found to influence the peak quality. The optimized method can be used for rapid data acquisition. The method was demonstrated for the determination of residual monomer concentration in an inverse-emulsion copolymerization.