Gold nanoparticle decorated graphene oxide/silica composite stationary phase for high-performance liquid chromatography

In the initial phase of this study, graphene oxide (GO)/silica was fabricated by assembling GO onto the silica particles, and then gold nanoparticles (GNPs) were used to modify the GO/silica to prepare a novel stationary phase for high-performance liquid chromatography. The new stationary phase could be used in both reversed-phase chromatography and hydrophilic interaction liquid chromatography modes. Good separations of alkylbenzenes, isomerides, amino acids, nucleosides, and nucleobases were achieved in both modes. Compared with the GO/silica phase and GNPs/silica phase, it is found that except for hydrophilicity, large π-electron systems, hydrophobicity, and coordination functions, this new stationary phase also exhibited special separation performance due to the combination of 2D GO with zero-dimensional GNPs.