Planar chromatography movements

Isocratic linear development is the most popular mode of chromatogram development in analytical and preparative planar chromatography. It can be easily performed in horizontal chambers of all types. The mobile phase in the reservoir is brought into contact with the adsorbent layer, and then the movement of the eluent front takes place. Chromatogram development is stopped when the mobile phase front reaches the desired position. Usually 20 X 20 cm and 10 X 20 cm plates are applied for preparative separations, and this makes the migration distance equal to about 18 cm. Due to the fact that the migration distance varies with time according to the equation Z, = (Z, c, and t are the distance of the solvent front traveled, constant,... 

Filtration was a widely used separation method already two hundred years ago. Filtration was transformed to chromatography when the mobile phase migration changed its direction. Instead of the perpendicular direction of the filter paper in filtration, planar chromatography uses mobile phase movement parallel in one dimension of the stationary phase. 

A series of instruments for rotation planar chromatography have been described. These are based on the work of Hopf [61 ], more than 50 years ago, who introduced an apparatus in which the mobile pha.se was propagated by centrifugal forces. Subsequently methods have been developed by a number of researchers to control the mobile phase movement (for review, see [62 ). The separation can be performed in various types of chambers, such as in a normal chamber, a microchamber, or an ultramicrochamber. The separation takes place during constant rotation and the flow rate of the mobile phase changes throughout, i.e. the flow rate is inversely proportional to the square distance from the centre of the supply. 

Forced-flow development. Forced-flow planar chromatography is a development technique wherein pressure is used to aid the mobility of the developing solvent. Examples of this are over-pressure layer chromatography (OPLC) and over-pressure thin-layer chromatography (OPTLC). In the latter a forced-flow technique is used to decrease the development time and thus speed up the separations. A pump controls the speed of the mobile phase. Theoretically, this method is faster than when movement of the solvent is due to capillary action alone (normal TLC) and can be used to advantage if slow-moving viscous solvents are involved as developing solvents. 

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