Tswett, Mikhail Semenovich

Tswett, Mikhail Semenovich (1872-1919) Russian biochemist, father of chromatography who in 1906 first used the term chromatography (colour writing) to describe his work on the separation of plant pigments on a column of chalk using a petroleum ether eluant. 

Issaq HJ, Berezkin VG. Mikhail Semenovich Tswett the father of modern chromatography. In Issaq HJ (ed.), A Century of Separation Science. New York Marcel Dekker, Inc. 2002, pp. 19-26. 

V. G. Berezkin (compiler), Chromatographic Adsorption Analysis Selected Works by Mikhail Semenovich Tswett, Ellis Horwood, New York, London, 1990. 

Berezkin, V.G. Horwood, E. (1990) Chromatographic Adsorption Analysis. Selected works of Mikhail Semenovich Tswett, New York. 

Chromatography seems to have been around for a long time in its current state, so it is difficult to believe that the first reported work naming and using chromatography was just over 100 years ago. Mikhail Semenovich Tswett (1872-1919) was born in a small town in Italy but grew up in Switzerland with his father. In later life, he went on to study botany at university in Geneva and, by 1896, he had completed the work and write-up for his doctoral thesis, for which he carried out work on the structure of the plant cell, chloroplasts, and the movement of protoplasm. 

Chromatography (Mikhail Semenovich Tswett) Tswett, a Russian botanist, invents chromatography. 

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