The term Chromatography includes a number of physical-chemical separation methods, in which the substances to be separated are distributed between a stationary and a mobile phase.
Basically chromatography according to the state of aggregation of the mobile phase
is divided into gas-, liquid? and supercritical fluid chromatography.
Different separation mechanisms form the basics of chromatographic process, the most
important are the adsorption, distribution, ion exchange and size exclusion. Depending
on their performance they are called column and planar-chromatography.
The Russian botanist Mikhail Tswett (1852-1919) is referred to as the discoverer of
chromatography. In 1903 he succeeded in separating plant pigments at different
adsorbents und describing these process.
Chromatography was used primarily as an analytical method for identification and
quantification of substances and substance mixtures as well as a preparative method
for purificating and isolating larger quantities of substances.
Today modern coupling techniques with spectroscopic methods (e.g. NMR, UV, ICP OES, MS)
and with the method of light scattering expand the spectrum of applications.