What is the Chromatographic Process

The Russian botanist Mikhail Tswett invented the technique and coined the name chromatography. Early in the twentieth century, he placed extracts containing a mixture of plant pigments on the top of glass colunms filled with particles of calcium carbonate. Continued washing (elution) of the mixtures through the colunms with additional solvent (called the eluent) resulted in the separation 

When there is a great difference in the retention of different components on the material filling the column, a short column can be used to separate and isolate a rapidly moving component from highly retained material. This is the basis of a useful sample preparation technique called solid-phase extraction (SPE). 

The critical defining properties of a chromatographic process are as follows  

An arrangement whereby a mixture is deposited at one end of the stationary phase. 

different rates or ratios of partitioning for each component of the mixture, and many cycles of this process during elution  

a means of either visualizing bands of separated components on or adjacent to the stationary phase, or of detecting the eluting bands as peaks in the mobile phase effluent. 

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