AbstractComputer simulation was carried out to examine the performance of a molecular weight (MW) monitor‐installed gel permeation chromatograph (GPC), by taking account of the effects of limited column resolution according to Tung's phenomenological scheme. Efficiency of GPC fractionation was discussed also in the same light. For simulated GPC fractionation results of model polymers having log‐normal distribution, various average MW's and MWD functions were calculated from the data obtained by the MW monitor method as well as the conventional MW calibration methods, and compared with the given true values. The MW monitor method generally tends to predict narrower distributions than the true ones, as opposed to the conventional calibration methods which usually predict broader distributions. For certain simple cases, semiquantitative relation between the extent of column resolution and these deduced average MW's was derived. The efficiency of GPC fractionation (as judged, for example, by the polydispersity of recovered fractions) is limited by such factors as fraction size, column resolution, and polydispersity of the original sample its
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