Hybrid organic-silica capillary monolith chromatographic columns are a new type of chromatography separation matrix which has broad development and application prospects in micro-dimension separation and analysis. Recently, No. 1809 Research Group of DICP, led by Prof. Fahan Zou, has made new progress in the preparation of hybrid organic-silica capillary monolith chromatographic columns, and their results were published as a inside-cover paper on the Chem. Comm. (Chem. Commun., 2013, 49, 231-233).

By employing polyhedral oligosilsesquioixanes (POSS) as the raw material, and by means of ring-opening polymerization of alkylene oxides, the DICP researchers were able to prepare successfully monolith materials with 3-D frameworks. The separation column efficiency of the as-prepared monolith columns for small organic molecules could be as high as 140,000 N/m, while their separation effect for complicated biological samples were comparable with the packed columns. Furthermore, the surface of the matrix was rich in modifiable functional groups, which could be modified to satisfy the needs of broad applications. This accomplishment thus provided a new idea and a new route for the preparation of new types of hybrid capillary monolith chromatographic columns.