High-Performance Thin-Layer Chromatography

Book: Analytical Separation Science, First Edition, vol 5: Related Chromatographic Techniques. Chapter: "High-Performance Thin-Layer Chromatography". Edited by Jared L. Anderson, Alain Berthod, Verónica Pino Estévez, and Apryll M. Stalcup. Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA. 2015.

Thin-layer chromatography (TLC), which completed 75 years in 2013 [1,2], has experienced an important evolution in its instrumental development in these past years. It is a technique for separating dissolved chemical compounds by virtue of their differential migration on a thin layer of sorbent, which is arranged on a supporting plate, using a liquid mobile phase. The term high-performance thin-layer chromatography (HPTLC) was coined from the introduction of low particle size, high-performance TLC plates, although the concept has been extended to incorporate all new instrumental developments. Therefore, HPTLC is now synonymous with instrumental TLC besides the term used to describe these plates. HPTLC, or its equivalent, planar chromatography, comprises all chromatographic techniques that use a planar open stationary phase present as or on a plane layer.
HPTLC has a modular character. Its basic steps (sample application, chromatographic development, and detection) are now fully automated and computer-controlled [4]. Different instruments for each one of these steps have been developed, such as spray-on sample applicators, sophisticated chambers for chromatographic development that include the possibility of gradient separation, scanning densitometers, electronic documentation systems, bioactivity detection methodologies, or devices for hyphenation.
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