NSF Award
9901750
This Small Business Innovation Research Phase II project will produce nonporous zirconia microspheres to act as high performance liquid chromatographic (HPLC) supports that can revolutionize a wide variety of analyses including environmental pollutants and pharmaceutical substances. Current state-of-the-art HPLC supports limit the speed and resolution in analyzing samples. They further require a great deal of solvent because they are porous and they can not tolerate high temperature. Nonporous zirconia, coated by Chemical Vapor Deposition (CVD) with carbon, will overcome these problems. We will synthesize these zirconia microspheres using zirconium alkoxides. The chief goal is to provide commercial quality nonporous monodisperse spherical zirconia particles with sufficient reproducibility and stability to produce ultrafast chromatography columns. This particle synthesis work will produce benefits for other industries as well (e.g., ceramic synthesis, catalysis). During Phase II nonporous carbon coated zirconia columns will be used for the fast separation of samples including herbicides, insecticides, nitroaromatics, chloronated phenols, and common carboxylate drugs such as salicylic acid, ibuprofen, and acetaminophen at column temperatures up to 2000 degrees C. The use of these columns should have a twofold benefit; it will speed analysis by at least an order of magnitude, and it will significantly reduce the amount of organic solvent needed.<br/> The primary commercial application of this research will be the reduction of organic solvent use in reversed-phase separation of environmentally impactive substances<br/>by using ultrafast nonporous carbon clad zirconia at column temperatures as high<br/>as 200 degrees Celcius.
