The application of ordered mesoporous (organo-)silica' as stationary phase in chromatography

A promising field of application for ordered mesoporous (organo-)silica materials is the separation sciences, i.e. HPLC (High Performance/ Pressure Liquid Chromatography). From an economic point of view, chromatographic columns posses small amounts of (organo-)silica materials. This infers that the material's cost, which is higher for ordered mesoporous (organo-)silica materials than for their non-ordered equivalents, is not an issue. The higher surface area of the materials strongly increases the retentive power of the stationary phase, up to four times when compared to one of the best retaining commercial columns. Their uniform pore size on the other hand can mean a huge advantage in size exclusion chromatography, where well-defined pore systems can be combined to generate a high performance size exclusion column