What Is HPLC (High Performance Liquid Chromatography)?
Brief History and Definition Liquid chromatography was defined in the early 1900s by the work of the Russian botanist, Mikhail S. Tswett. His pioneering studies focused on separating compounds [leaf pigments], extracted from plants using a solvent, in a column packed with particles. Tswett filled an open glass column with particles. Two specific materials that he found useful were powdered chalk [calcium carbonate] and alumina. He poured his sample [solvent extract of homogenized plant leaves] into the column and allowed it to pass into the particle bed. This was followed by pure solvent. As the sample passed down through the column by gravity, different colored bands could be seen separating because some components were moving faster than others. He related these separated, different-colored bands to the different compounds that were originally contained in the sample. He had created an analytical separation of these compounds based on the differing strength of each compound’s chemica
