Surface area determination of a polystyrene–divinylbenzene chromatographic packing material via ionic amphiphile adsorption from aqueous mobile phases and application of Gouy–Chapman theory

A method for the determination of the chromatographically accessible area of a reversed-phase column similar to the method of Hägglund and Ståhlberg [J. Chromatogr. A 761 (1997) 13] is applied to a column containing a polystyrene–divinylbenzene resin. Its theoretical basis is Gouy–Chapman theory in combination with an electrostatically modified linear adsorption isotherm. The surface area value determined for the resin, 96 m2/g, is much less than the reported surface area value, 400 m2/g, determined by N2 sorptometry and application of Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (BET) theory. The method also provides a value for the number of moles of native anionic sites present on the column.