Application to the Theory of Chromatography

The tubular chromatographic column with the stationary phase held as a thin layer on the inside of the wall has been considered by Golay (1958), who arrives at a formula for the dispersion by an analysis similar to Taylor s. It is desired only to point out here that the practical results of chromatography show that the exit concentration from a column is often well represented by the normal distribution and that this allows the preceding formulae to be used to predict the degree of separation. 

Suppose that a mixture of two solutes is moving in the system described and that the partition coefficients of the solutes are i and a2, respectively. Then their centres of gravity will move with speeds Vx and V2 where 

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