We define ourselves as the Information Age. However, we could also label it the Plastic (or better Polymer) Age. Polymers are present in nearly every aspect of modern life. Polymers are important materials for producing computers, carpets, water pipes, cars, planes etc. Without polymers we would not have satellites and space shuttles and medical surgery would be less advanced. The inventory of products and goods containing polymers is endless.
　　Polymers are complex mixtures of large molecules varying in size, chemical composition, functionality, and molecular topology. For tailoring polymer structures in view of a certain application it is important to understand the correlation between the molecular parameters and the final properties of the material. Thus, the development of analytical methods for the molecular heterogeneity elucidation of complex polymers is an important subject in materials science.　Present day polymers exhibit distributions in more than one parameter of molecular heterogeneity.
　　Copolymers for example are not only distributed with regard to chain length but also regarding chemical composition and quite frequently molecular topology. Accordingly, analytical techniques for complex polymers must address this multidimensionality in molecular structure. In most cases, the detailed analysis of the different distributions in polymers requires chromatographic separations. Similar to the approach in classical analytical chemistry for a specific type of separation, e.g. according to molecular size or chemical composition, suitable stationary and mobile phases must be identified and optimized for maximum resolution and throughput [1-3].
　　The present talk discusses the principle ideas of analyzing complex polymers by multidimensional analytical techniques. The most promising protocols refer to coupling different chromatographic methods (2D chromatography) or hyphenating liquid chromatography with information rich detectors (FTIR, NMR, MS). A number of representative examples for multidimensional polymer analysis will be presented that refer to the analysis of block copolymers, hydrophilic copolymers and polyolefins.
　　References
　　[1] H. Pasch, B. Trathnigg. HPLC of Polymers. Springer Publishers, Berlin-Heidelberg-New York, 1998, ISBN 3-540-61689-6
　　[2] P. Kilz, H. Pasch: Coupled Liquid Chromatographic Techniques in Molecular Characterization. In: Encyclopedia of Analytical Chemistry (Ed. R.A. Meyers), J. Wiley & Sons, Chichester, 2000
　　[3] H. Pasch, W. Schrepp. MALDI-TOF Mass Spectrometry of Synthetic Polymers.Springer Publishers, Berlin-Heidelberg-New York, 2003, ISBN 3-540-44259-6 .