How to find molecular weight using Shimadzu Gel Permeation Chromatography GPC system

In this video, we are demonstrating how to determine the molecular weight of polymer samples using the Shimadzu Gel Permeation Chromatograph (GPC) system.
Gel permeation chromatography, more commonly known as size exclusion chromatography, is a chromatographic method that separates molecules based on their effective size relative to the pore diameter and volume of the porous stationary phase of the column, so it is also called size exclusion chromatography. There are two types of size exclusion chromatography, gel permeation chromatography and gel filtration chromatography. One is for solvent soluble polymers and another one is for water soluble polymers.
There are two essential hardware components in GPC/GFC analysis. The first is the column, and the second is the detector. The variety of columns available have exclusion limits ranging from very low molecular weight to a few million. This provides more options to select a column that is optimized for separation at the target’s molecular weight. A good calibration curve can be established based on a suitable column and the polymer standards.
The most used detector in GPC analysis is the refractive index detector (RID), which contains a flow cell that is made up of the sample side and the reference side. When solutes elute out from the column and flow into the sample side of the detector, the composition of the mobile phase in the sample cell changes. This causes the light beam to refract due to the difference in refractive index between the sample and reference side.
To run an analysis on the polymer samples, the LabSolutions workstation is used for data acquisition and processing. This video shows how the molecular weight of polymers is determined using this software on the Nexera GPC system. Based on the raw data files of polymer standards with varied molecular weight, the GPC calibration curve can be set up on the LabSolutions GPC Postrun. The results are viewed from the Molecular Weight Distribution Table, which displays the molecular weight information such as Mn, Mw, Mz etc. The dispersity value, which is the ratio of Mw to Mn, is used for evaluating the distribution of the molecular weight. The closer the dispersity value is to 1.0, the narrower the molecular weight distribution.
Enjoy watching this video! Thank you!

GPC System:
https://www.shimadzu.com/an/products/...

Size Exclusion Chromatography:
https://www.shimadzu.com/an/service-s...

Measurement of Molecular Weight by using GPC method:
https://www.shimadzu.com/an/service-s...

Refractive Index Detector:
https://www.shimadzu.com/an/service-s...

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