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Handbook of Size Exclusion Chromatography and Related ...

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Thus, an accurate Mw value can be obtained from the light-scattering signal<br />

alone if the injected mass is known. Alternatively,the area measurement can be<br />

used instead <strong>of</strong> a point-by-point summation <strong>of</strong> calculated molecular weights<br />

toavoidtheeffect<strong>of</strong>baselinenoiseatthepeakedges.Thismethodhasbeenshown<br />

to give greater precision than the summation <strong>of</strong> individual values at each elution<br />

volume (29,30). This approach can also be used for samples that contain ahighmolecular-weightfractionthatisdetectedonlybythelight-scatteringdetector,not<br />

by the concentration detector.<br />

The inverse problem occurs at the low-molecular-weight end <strong>of</strong> many<br />

distributions, at which the light-scattering signal is too small to determine a<br />

reliablemolecularweightestimatebutthereisstillasignalfromtherefractometer.<br />

Inthiscase,extrapolation<strong>of</strong>thecolumncalibrationcurvefrommeasureddatacan<br />

improve the accuracy <strong>of</strong> Mn, as shown in Fig. 6.<br />

3.2.5 SEC-Light Scattering with Universal Calibration<br />

Light scattering can also be used in conjunction with universal calibration to<br />

obtain an estimate <strong>of</strong> the intrinsic viscosity <strong>of</strong> the sample (see Sec. 5). Because<br />

<strong>of</strong> the greater complexity <strong>of</strong> the measurement <strong>and</strong> the lower light-scattering<br />

Figure 6 SEC tracings from light-scattering <strong>and</strong> differential refractive index detectors<br />

showing the low sensitivity <strong>of</strong> each detector at the ends <strong>of</strong> a hypothetical distribution.<br />

© 2004 by Marcel Dekker, Inc.

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