Monodisperse core–shell silica particles as a high-performance liquid chromatography packing material: Facile in situ silica sol-gel synthesis

•Monodisperse core–shell silica particles are formed by continuous self-assembly.•The in situ silica sol-gel method can be easily scaled up for production.•Excellent column performance for HPLC separation. In recent years, core–shell silica particles (CSSPs) have been increasingly used for highly efficient separation at fast flow rates and relatively low back pressures in high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). However, material synthesis techniques for producing CSSPs economically in batch processes remain elusive. In this report, a practical and straightforward method for the preparation of CSSPs is presented. By refluxing freshly prepared nonporous silica particles in ammonia–water solution in the presence of poly(diallyldimethylammonium chloride) at 70–100 °C, CSSPs with shell thicknesses of up to 300 nm and pore sizes from 8 to 25 nm were easily prepared. The effects of the synthetic conditions on the shell thickness, surface area, and pore size were investigated in detail, and the method reproducibility was evaluated in scale-up experiments. A mechanism of CSSP formation is also proposed. The CSSPs were characterized via scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, laser particle size (dynamic light scattering) analysis, and nitrogen adsorption and desorption experiments. The synthesized 3.4-μm CSSPs were functionalized with dimethyloctadecylchlorosilane and used as an HPLC packing material, exhibiting excellent separation performance for both small molecules and large biomolecules. In summary, we report the simplest method developed thus far for the preparation of monodisperse core–shell silica particles suitable for HPLC column packing.