Analysis of Glue in Copper Electrolyte Solutions by Column-Switching HPLC

Abstract

A new method for determination of concentrations of trace glue in copper electrolyte solutions, and the molecular weight distribution of the glue, and its change with time using a combination of the size exclusion chromatography (SEC) and the column-switching methods was developed. Trace amount of glue can be separated from a large amount of copper sulfate and sulfuric acid in the electrolyte solutions by pretreatment of the SEC resin column. Then, only a fraction containing the glue could be introduced into an analytical column by the column-switching technique, and the determination of concentrations of glue and the molecular weight distribution of the glue could be analyzed. This method was applied to electrolyte solutions containing mg L^-1 level glue to determine concentrations and molecular weight distributions of the glue of molecular weight larger than about 2, 500.
Degradation behavior of the glue in the electrolyte solutions was also investigated. The velocities speed of the hydrolysis reaction are depended on the concentrations of sulfuric acid. By the temperature dependency of the hydrolysis reaction rate constant of glue, the apparent activation energy of hydrolysis was estimated to be 65kJ/mol using an Arrhenius plot.