ABSTRACT
Chromatographic techniques can be classified depending on the basis of stationary bed shape or mobile phase. Column chromatography and planar chromatography can be noted as the two most well-known bed shapes in chromatographic methods. Thin-layer chromatography (TLC), as a subcategory of planar chromatography, is a type of chromatography that should be carried out in a layer of adsorbent spread on different kinds of supports such as paper or glass plate. The required equipment is composed of imaging detectors to acquire images of the TLC plates, light source, and appropriate optics such as filters, which are all embedded in a box, and computer test software for data acquisition. Densitometry can be considered a technique to detect TLC plate tracks and create analog curves for qualitative and quantitative analysis. According to the nature and huge amount of data in image processing, application of multivariate chemometric methods seems necessary for resolving hidden relationships in data and/or extraction of more useful information.
