Separation performance of a new triptycene-based stationary phase with polyethylene glycol units and its application to analysis of the essential oil of Osmanthus fragrans Lour

•Combining the 3D π-rich TP framework with polar PEG moieties.•High-resolution performance for the isomers of anilines, phenols and alkanes.•Low operational temperature and improved thermal stability.•Good potential for analysis of essential oils. This work presents a new triptycene-based stationary phase (TP-PEG) combining the three-dimensional (3D) triptycene (TP) framework with polyethylene glycol (PEG) moieties for gas chromatographic (GC) separations. Its statically coated capillary column showed high column efficiency of 5263 plates/m determined by naphthalene at 120 °C. Its Rohrschneider-McReynolds constants and Abraham solvation system constants were measured to characterize its polarity and molecular interactions with analytes of different types. As evidenced, the TP-PEG column showed high-resolution performance for the isomers of anilines, phenols, halobenzenes and alkanes with distinct advantages over the PEG columns, particularly those critical isomers such as 3,5-/2,3-xylidine (R = 2.94), m-/p-chlorotoluene (R = 1.92), p-/m-cresol (R = 1.89), 2,2-dimethylbutane/2-methylpentane (R = 1.51), 2,2,3-trimethylbutane /2,3-dimethyl pentane (R = 1.74) and 2,3-dimethylpentane/n-heptane (R = 1.92). In addition, it exhibited good column repeatability and reproducibility with the relative standard deviation (RSD) values of 0.02%–0.09% for run-to-run, 0.13%–0.22% for day-to-day and 2.7%–4.1% for column-to-column, respectively, and a wide operational temperature range (30 °C–280 °C) . Its application to GC–MS analysis of the essential oil of Osmanthus fragrans has proven its good potential for practical analysis of complex samples.