Displacement chromatography chromatographic separation

The principle of displacement chromatography for separation is based on the Langmuir isotherm. Only a finite number of sites are on the chromatographic support (stationary phase) for the binding of sample components, and if a site is occupied by one molecule, it is not available to the other sample components. Because the number of binding sites is limited, they are saturated when the concentration of the molecules in the sample is large in comparison to the dissociation constant for the sites. 

Development of the Chromatogram. The term development describes the process of performing a chromatographic separation. There are several ways in which separation may be made to occur, eg, frontal, displacement, and elution chromatography. Frontal chromatography uses a large quantity of sample and is usually unsuited to analytical procedures. In displacement and elution chromatography, much smaller amounts of material are used. 

A chromatographic separation can be developed in three ways, by displacement development, by frontal analysis, and by elution development, the last being almost universally used in all analytical chromatography. Nevertheless, for the sake of completeness, and because in preparative chromatography (under certain conditions of mass overload) displacement effects occur to varying extents, all three development processes will be described. 

Chromatographic separation of these mixtures in the elution mode is incapable of resolving many thousands of peptides present in these mixtures, even when orthogonal, two-dimensional separations are performed. The investigator is left with little option for low-abundance peptide iden-tihcation other than affinity approaches that target certain subclasses (e.g., phosphopeptides). While effective for certain applications, the latter allow for enrichment of only a small subset of low-abundance peptides. Because of its potential for broad applicability to the problem of low-abundance peptide enrichment, displacement chromatography remains a technique that offers great possibilities in this area. 

While much has been learned about the role and selection of the operation parameters in displacement chrcmatography (60-66), little is known yet about the rules of displacer selection and the means available to control the selectivity of the separation. The paucity of well characterized displacers and the lack of knowledge of the solute adsorption isotherms hinder most strongly the wider acceptance and use of displacement chromatography. In most cases, displacer selection is still done by trial-and-error. In the majority of modem displacement chromatographic publications a reversed-phase system was used to separate small polar molecules, antibiotics, oligopeptides and small proteins (52-66). 

The development of displacement separations has historically been an empirical process and even though chromatographic theory may guide the selection of operating conditions the final stage must involve experimental validation. Typically, several experiments will be carried out at or near the conditions determined by the theory. The final stage in the procedure is either experimental or numerical optimization of the displacement process to produce optimal yields, purities and productivities. At this point, the relative efficacy of selective and conventional displacement chromatography can also be evaluated. 

Chromatography may be performed as elution, frontal, or displacement. When the mode of development is not specified, a chromatographic separation is considered to be an elution. 

Displacement chromatography A chromatographic process in which, after the sample is injected, the mobile phase is replaced by a solution of a compoxmd more strongly adsorbed than any feed component, the displacer. Eventually, the feed components are separated into a series of successive zones, forming an isotachic train which propagates without further change. If the column efficiency, the sepa-... 

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