ABSTRACT
Chromatography is fundamentally a separation science. Its origin as an analytical method lies in work of the Russian botanist Mikhail Tswett, who, in the early part of the century, separated an extract of plant pigments into its components by passing them through a glass column packed with powdered calcium carbonate. In standard gas and liquid chromatography, the stationary phase is packed into a column through which the mobile phase is passed at a constant flow rate (column chromatography). Thin layer chromatography is closely related to Tswett’s original experiments in that the separated analytes are not eluted from the thin layer plate but simple separated upon it. They are then usually detected by treating the plate with some kind of color development reagent. Both solid and liquid stationary phases are also used in a special application called exclusion chromatography.
