An evaporative light scattering detector (ELSD) coupled with HPLC was used for the first time to characterize membranes. Polydispersed PEG-200, 600, and 1000 were selected as probe molecules to study the dependence of membrane retention on molecular weight via a gradient eluted HPLC separation coupled to ELSD detection. The results show that HPLC/ELSD is a really general and powerful technique to study the nanofiltration (NF) process since it does not require any special properties for the solutes (chromospheres or fluorophores) and possesses the required sensitivity. Especially in solvent resistant NF (SRNF), where a wide range of organic solvents is used, the ELSD detector was not affected by the interaction between solvent and solutes, which is a critical issue compared to other more common detectors.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.