| AVS 58th Annual International Symposium and Exhibition | |
| Applied Surface Science Division | Wednesday Sessions |
| Session AS-WeA |
| Session: | Correlative Analysis - A Multi-technique Approach for Identification and Structure-Property Relationships |
| Presenter: | Matthew R. Linford, Brigham Young University |
| Authors: | M.R. Linford, Brigham Young University D. Jensen, Brigham Young University R. Davis, Brigham Young University S. Kanyal, Brigham Young University A. Dadson, US Synthetic Corporation M. Vail, US Synthetic Corporation |
| Correspondent: | Click to Email |
Patterned forests of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) were used as a template to fabricate novel silica-based thin-layer chromatography plates (TLC). The resulting CNTs are infiltrated with elemental silicon by low pressure chemical vapor deposition of silane. Silicon coated CNTs are annealed in air to remove the CNTs and convert the silicon to silica. The resulting material is white, which is indicative and characteristic of silica. This process produces TLC plates that are porous and robust. The microfabricated TLC plates are characterized extensively by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), which shows the precise placement of the adsorbent material. Plates are also characterized by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry, and BET isotherm measurements. Unlike almost all other commercially available plates, these microfabricated structures do not require a binder to hold the adsorbent material together. Baseline separation of a CAMAG (Muttenz, Switzerland) five-component dye test mixture using toluene as the mobile phase was obtained. The chromatographic efficiencies of these microfabricated TLC plates are typically 70% higher than commercially available high-performance TLC plates, and sometimes much higher, also showing a 150% reduction in development time; these microfabricated TLC plates allow for both improved efficiency and speed of analysis.