New approach to aqueous gel permeation chromatography of nonderivatized cellulose

A novel approach to the gel permeation chromatography (GPC) of nonderivatized cellulose is reported using Sepharose CL‐6B as the column packing material, 0.5N NaOH as the eluent, and cadoxen as the cellulose solvent. The traditional approach to GPC of cellulose has been to convert the cellulose to its nitrate thereby making it soluble in the solvent tetrahydrofuran. The circumvention of the need to derivatize the cellulose in the new system results in considerable saving of time. The new system gives good fractionation for cellulose. It also provides excellent separation of polystyrene sulfonate and dextran standards thereby making the system amenable to calibration. The effect of the particle size distribution of the column packing material on the efficiency of separation is discussed. Potential applications for this new method include studies on both acidic and enzymatic hydrolysis as well as fine structure of cellulose, starch, and other polymers capable of forming stable alkaline solutions.