chemical principle/ revi~i ted
Edited by Charles D. Mickey Texas A8M at Galveston Galveston. TX 77553
Separation Technology I. Chromatography Charles D. Mickey Texas ABM University at Galveston, Galveston, TX 77553 Within the past century, in response to the need for fast and accurate analyses, a variety of separation procedures have been developed. Through the combined efforts of the industrial and scientific communities, more than 30 separation methods have emerged and found practical applicaiions ( l J. Some uf the classical methods for accomplishing semirations include fractional distillation, fractionai crystdlization, filtration, chemical and electrostatic precipitation, solvent exgaseous diftrartion, ion exchange, destructive~distiilntion, fusion, and mass spectrometry. Unquestionably, however, the most powertul and w r s ~ t i l eseparation processes to be developed is chromalographg, a separation procedure, of biophysical origin, that iinds application in all hranches of science. The Germination of the Chromatographlc Method Plinv the Elder's (Gaius Plinius Secundus. A.D. 23-79) method of detecting i'ron(11) sulfate on papyrus impregnated with an extract of gall nuts ( 2 ) may have been the first recorded applicationif the chromatographic method. During the nineteenth century, occasional use was made of similar tests by dyemakers, industrial chemists, and a few scientists involved in basic research, such as Runge, Schonhein, and Goppelsroeder (3).Another pioneering work from this period which would be considered today to belong to the field of chromatoeranhv was accomnlished hv David T. Dav. He demonstrated in 1897 that wcen crude iil was passed thinugh a laver of finelv oowdered Fuller's earth. a fractionation occur;, similar
