ABSTRACT
The rst reports about the monolithic supports were published in the late 1960s and early 1970s, but the real breakthrough occurred in the 1990s and still continues (Svec and Tennikova 2003). The rst scientic paper of the second period was published by Hjerten and coworkers who introduced polyacrylamide gel (Hjerten, Liao, and Zhang 1989). This work was soon followed by the introduction of methacrylate (Tennikova, Belenkii, and Svec 1990) and silica monoliths(Nakanishi and Soga 1991; Minakuchi et al. 1996). Since then many other monoliths have been described, for example, monoliths prepared via methathesis polymerization (Mayr et al. 2001), monoliths cast from cellulose (Noel, Sanderson, and Spark 1993), superporous agarose monoliths (Gustavsson and Larsson 1999), cryogels from polyacrylamide (Arvidsson et al. 2002), and others. An excellent overview about the chromatographic monoliths can be found in the recently published book by Svec, Tennikova, and Deyl (2003).
