Surface Sulfonated Styrene Divinyl Benzene-Optimization of Performance in Ion Chromatography

When used with Ion Chromatography as a pellicular cation-exchanger, the optimum performance capacity of 50μ surface sulfonated styrene 2% divinyl benzene copolymer was found to be about 0.018 meq/g. This observation was at great variance with the theory and was explained by much slower diffusion of cations in this ion-exchanger relative to fully sulfonated ones. Slower diffusion was attributed to hindered swelling of the sulfonated polymer on the unsulfonated core and to varying percent sulfonation within the sulfonated region.