History of Chromatography

History of Chromatography

The study of chromatography started in the 18′th century when with a great interest the nature of in-organic compounds was studied on filter paper by Runge. He separated in-organic salts & observed that inorganic salts travel to different extent producing an attractive pattern. In the year 1898, DAY in USA forced crude petroleum through a colmun of Limestone & Fuller’s Earth. He observed that first portion was of light hydrocarbons, followed by hydrocarbons of aromatic nature, un-saturated type, heterocyclic & nitrogen-sulphur containing high molecular weight hydrocarbons

The chromatographic principle was discovered first by a russian botanist, Michael Tswett (1906) who used a glass column of calcium carbonate for the separation of chlorophyll pigments from plants by using petroleum ether, The pigments according to their adsorption patterns, were resolved into various coloured zones, he then separated & estimated them

Between 1910 & 1930 very little work was published about chromatography, The major development occured around 1930 when Lederer & co-workers (1931) separated lutein & xanthine on a column of calcium carbonate powder, Further developments soon followed when Kuhn, Karrer & Ruzicka, separated plant carotenes into several components by adsorption chromatography. This helped in the resolution of naturally occuring mixtures of pigments, sugars, amino acids, proteins, vitamins & hormones. This leaded to the development of adsorption & partition column chromatography for the identification, separation, isolation, both on preparative & analytical cases

In 1935, Adams & Holmes observed some synthetic ion-exchange resins which are capable of exchanging ions & thus ion-exchange chromatography came into existence

Tiselius (1940) & Claesson (1946) after studying the properties of solutions in the chromatographic process, classified these into 3 groups, mainly on the principle of separation into Frontal Analysis, displacement analysis & elution analysis, For this work, Tiselius was awarded the nobel prize in 1948

Another broad type of chromatography, involving partition between 2 liquids was proposed by Martin & Synge (1941), They used chromatographic column which is filled with silica gel particles with water retained on silica gel & passed chloroform flowing through the column, This system successfully separated the acetylated amino acids according to their partition coeffecient

In 1944, Martin, Consden & Gorden replaced silica gel column by strips of filter paper & developed paper chromatography, For this work, they were awarded Nobel Prize of 1952

Thin Layer Chromatography though discovered first by Izmailer & Shraiber, was further developed by Stahl & co-workers using silica gel on glass plates, They successfully demonstrated the usefulness of TLC in the separation of wide variety of substances

Reversed phase paper chromatography was then devised, It is method in which paper is impregnated with a hydrophobic liquid and aqueous phase (polar) liquid is used as a mobile phase, This technique is used for the separation of materials having poor water solubility

Amongest the newest & most effective chromatographic technique for analysing complex mixtures is a Gas Chromatography, It was introduced by Martin & James (1952), The components of the mixture migrates at different speeds, when carried along by an inert gas which acts as a mobile phase, This method is very advantageous in speed, accuracy, sensitivity & versatility as compared to other methods, The instrumentation of gas chromatography soon developed & the technique is used in routine separation & identification of different compounds

The theoretical aspects of chromatography were first studied by Wilson (1949) who discussed the quantitative aspects in terms of diffusion, rate of adsorption & isotherm non-linearity….etc

Glueckauf (1949) described the column performance in terms of stationary phase, particle size & diffusion, However, it is Van Deemter & co-workers (1956) who developed the rate theory to describe the separation process, Giddings in 1963 pointed out that if the effeciencies of gas chromatography were to be achieved in liquid chromatography, then particle sizes of 2.2 micrometers were required, This would require high mobile phase inlet pressure, This has resulted into the discovery of High Pressure (performance) liquid chromatography called HPLC

There has been continous development in chromatography particularly in techniques, materials & requirement of instrumentation which has resulted in the effecient, reliable & sensitive chromatographic methods in use today, the latest was the HPTLC technique.