π-Extended triptycene-based material for capillary gas chromatographic separations

Triptycene-based materials feature favorable physicochemical properties and unique molecular recognition ability that offer good potential as stationary phases for capillary gas chromatography (GC). Herein, we report the investigation of utilizing a π-extended triptycene material (denoted as TQPP) for GC separations. As a result, the TQPP capillary column exhibited high column efficiency of 4030 plates m−1 and high-resolution performance for a wide range of analytes, especially structural and positional isomers. Interestingly, the TQPP stationary phase showed unique shape selectivity for alkanes isomers and preferential retention for analytes with halogen atoms and H-bonding nature mainly through their halogen-bonding and H-bonding interactions. In addition, the TQPP column had good repeatability and reproducibility with the RSD values of 0.02–0.34% for run-to-run, 0.09–0.80% for day-to-day and 1.4–5.2% for column-to-column, respectively, and favorable thermal stability up to 280 °C. This work demonstrates the promising future of triptycene-based materials as a new class of stationary phases for GC separations. [Display omitted] •π-Extended triptycene-based stationary phase integrated by 2D and 3D units.•High-resolution capability for structural and positional isomers.•Good potential for determination of isomer impurities in real samples.