ABSTRACT
Chromatography is unique in the history of analytical methodology and is probably the most powerful and versatile technique available to the modern analyst. The development of chromatography has been colorful and quite remarkable in many ways. The development of liquid chromatography was painfully slow and arduous, whereas, in comparison, the rate of development of gas chromatography was almost meteoric. The first scientist to recognize chromatography as an efficient method of separation was the Russian botanist M. S. Tswett, who employed a primitive form of liquid solid chromatography to separate and isolate various plant pigments. In the late 1930s and early 1940s A. J. P. Martin and R. L. M. Synge introduced liquid liquid chromatography by supporting the stationary phase, in this case water, on silica in a packed bed and used it to separate some acetyl amino acids. Gas chromatography seemed to attract the attention of scientists of widely differing skills and disciplines.
