This method, employed with columns, involves solute migration through the entire system and solute detection as it emerges from the column. The detector continuously monitors the amount of solute in the emerging mobile-phase stream—the eluate—and transduces the signal, most often to a voltage, which is registered as a peak on a strip-chart recorder. The recorder trace where solute is absent is the baseline. A plot of the solute concentration along the migration coordinate of development chromatograms yields a similar solute peak. Collectively the plots are the concentration profiles; ideally they are Gaussian (normal, bell, or error curves). The signal intensity may also be digitized and stored in a computer memory for recall later. Solute behaviour is reported in terms of the retention time, which is the time required for a solute to migrate, or elute, from the column, measured from the instant the sample is injected into the mobile phase stream to the point at which the peak maximum occurs. The adjusted retention time is measured from the appearance of an unretained solute at the outlet. The dependence of these times on flow rate is removed by reporting the retention volumes, which are calculated as the retention times multiplied by the volumetric flow rate of the mobile phase.
The spots on the developed planar bed, the series of peaks on the paper produced by the recorder, or the printout of the computer data are various forms of chromatograms.
Retention mechanism
Classification in terms of the retention mechanism is approximate, because the retention actually is a mixture of mechanisms. If the partition coefficient is constant as the amount of solute is varied, the separation is referred to as linear chromatography. This condition is highly desirable because solute zones approach symmetrical Gaussian distributions. If the system is nonlinear, solute zones are asymmetrical. In the most common asymmetrical case, a zone “tails” into a following solute zone to contaminate it.
In adsorption chromatography solute molecules bond directly to the surface of the stationary phase. Stationary phases may contain a variety of adsorption sites differing in the tenacity with which they bind the molecules and in their relative abundance. The net effect determines the adsorbent activity. Partition chromatography utilizes a support material coated with a stationary-phase liquid. Examples are (1) water held by cellulose, paper, or silica, or (2) a thin film coated or bonded to a solid. The solid support ideally is inactive in the retention of solutes, but it actually is not; retention is mostly due to solute solution in the stationary liquid phase.
As mentioned above, the stationary phase in size-exclusion chromatography consists of molecules of the mobile phase trapped in the porous structure of a solid. Solute molecules are retained when they diffuse into and out of these pores. The time they remain in the pores is a function of their size, which determines the depth of penetration. There is a certain molecular size that represents the “just excluded” case. Molecules of this size and larger are excluded from the pores and are not separated. They appear first in elution chromatography. At the other end of the size spectrum, there is a certain size for which all molecules of this magnitude and smaller penetrate all the pores. These molecules also are not separated; they elute last. Gel-filtration chromatography refers to size-exclusion methods employing water as the mobile phase; gel-permeation chromatography makes use of an organic mobile phase.
Very specific intermolecular interactions, “lock and key,” are known in biochemistry. Examples include enzyme-protein, antigen-antibody, and hormone-receptor binding. A structural feature of an enzyme will attach to a specific structural feature of a protein. Affinity chromatography exploits this feature by binding a ligand with the desired interactive capability to a support such as a gel used in gel-filtration chromatography. The ligand retards a solute with the compatible structural feature and passes all other solutes in the mixture. The solute is then eluted by a mobile-phase change such as incorporating a competing solute, changing the acidity, or changing the ionic strength of the eluent.
There is no stationary phase in field-flow fractionation; the different-velocity streams or layers of the mobile phase with the solute distributed between them produce the separation.
Phases
Gas chromatography
Classification by phases gives the physical state of the mobile phase followed by the state of the stationary phase. Gas chromatography employing a gaseous fluid as the mobile phase, called the carrier gas, is subdivided into gas-solid chromatography and gas-liquid chromatography. The carrier gases used, such as helium, hydrogen, and nitrogen, have very weak intermolecular interactions with solutes. Molecular sieves are used in gas size-exclusion chromatography applied to gases of low molecular weight. Adsorption on solids tends to give nonlinear systems. Gas-liquid chromatography employs a liquid stationary phase where solution forces provide retention. At ordinary pressures the solutes in the gas phase behave as a mixture of ideal gases. All interactions responsible for selective retention occur in the stationary phase. Thus, a wide variety of liquid stationary phases have been employed; hundreds have been reported.
A basic rule in organic chemistry is that “like dissolves like.” Thus, the polar solvent water dissolves the polar solute ethanol but not the hydrocarbon octane. The nonpolar solvent benzene will dissolve octane but not ethanol. Polar stationary phases will retain polar solutes and pass those that are nonpolar. The order of emergence is reversed with nonpolar stationary phases. Lutz Rohrschneider of Germany initiated studies that led to a standard set of solute species, solvent probes, which helped order stationary phases in terms of polarity and intermolecular interactions present.
In gas chromatography the retention of solutes is most often referred to the behaviour of the straight-chain hydrocarbons; i.e., relative retention volumes are used. On a logarithmic scale this becomes the retention index (RI) introduced by the Swiss chemist Ervin sz. Kováts. The RI values of the solvent probes serve as the basis for the classification method introduced by Rohrschneider. Similar schemes have been suggested for liquid systems.
Gas-phase intermolecular interactions occur and are exploited in supercritical-fluid chromatography. Examples of interactive gases used at high pressure are carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, ammonia, hydrocarbons, sulfur hexafluoride, and halogenated methanes.
Mixtures of solutes that have a wide boiling point or polarity range or have a large variety of functional groups pose a particular problem. At low column-operating temperatures, the solutes with high volatility (or, more precisely, solutes with a large numerical value for the liquid solution activity coefficient) appear early on the chromatogram as well-resolved peaks. Solutes with low volatility progress slowly through the column, with ample opportunity for the peak broadening. These solutes appear as very low, broad peaks that may be overlooked. An increase in column temperature increases the concentration of the solutes in the gas phase. The solutes of high volatility, however, now spending most of their time in the mobile-gas phase, migrate rapidly through the column to appear as unresolved peaks. The succeeding solutes are adequately resolved. This is termed the general elution problem. A simple solution is to increase the column temperature during the course of the separation. The well-resolved, highly volatile solutes are removed from the column at the lower temperatures before the low-volatility solutes leave the origin at the column inlet. This technique is termed temperature-programmed gas chromatography.