Halogen Bonding Chromatography

With support from the Chemical Measurement and Imaging Program in the Division of Chemistry and the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR), Christopher P. Palmer, Orion Berryman, and their research groups in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Montana are developing novel materials and approaches for use in liquid chromatography. Liquid chromatography is used by many disciplines and industries to measure and determine the chemical composition of mixtures. Everyday applications of liquid chromatography addressed by this research include quality control and safety assurance of food products and pharmaceuticals, environmental analysis, clinical medicine, defense, and materials development and engineering. This research introduces novel materials and methods with broad scientific, social, and economic impact, enabling the analysis of mixtures with diverse compositions, and addressing important challenges in separation sciences. This project provides education, training, and development opportunities for graduate and undergraduate students with diverse backgrounds in an area of critical national need. This project is developing, synthesizing, and characterizing novel and generally useful liquid chromatographic stationary phase materials that utilize halogen bonding as the interaction and retention mechanism. Distinctive characteristics of halogen bonds, including soft-soft complementarity between the donor and acceptor atom and a high degree of directionality, generate chromatographic retention and separation selectivity that is distinct from traditional separations approaches. The project involves the synthesis and characterization of monodentate and bidentate halogen bond-donating stationary phases based on well-characterized halogen bond donors. The collaborative Palmer-Berryman team will characterize the performance and selectivity of these halogen bonding stationary phases in liquid chromatography. If successful, these studies have the potential to for significant impact, potentially expanding halogen bonding liquid chromatography applications to the separation and analysis of representative pharmaceuticals, peptides, and proteins in the future. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.