SEC Molecular-Weight-Sensitive Detection

In addition to an updated view of the basic principles of viscometry and elastic light scattering molecular-weight-sensitive detectors for size-exclusion chromatography (SEC), this review also examines many of the specific applications described in publications since 2001. These include the use of multidetector systems for validating SEC fractionation, examining polymer conformation, quantifying many forms of polymer topology (e.g., branching), physiochemical studies (e.g., phase separation and aggregation), analyzing oligomers, assessing polymer optical anisotropy, and estimating second virial coefficients. Although multidetector SEC is not without sources of error and uncertainty, it has developed into an extremely powerful analytical method that is increasingly used to accomplish diverse and difficult polymer analyses.