Separations techniques

The world is a complicated place in many ways. This is also a problem for the analyst who may wish to measure one component that is mixed up with a whole load of other substances. Trying to identify the one we are interested in becomes difficult. One of the main techniques applied by analytical scientists to deal with this problem is to separate out these various components and identify the one in which they are interested. A whole range of techniques have been developed that achieve this in many different ways. This is due to the large variety of analytes that need to be measured and the many environments in which they are found.

The principal techniques that have been employed by analysts for separation have been based on chromatogrpahy. Originally this was performed on sheets of paper, where coloured substances could be separated out depending on how they migrated through the paper. Today, laboratory instruments are used to perform these separations. One of these techniques is High-Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC). Separations can also be performed based on the electrical properties of the components of the sample. This is the fundamental behind Capillary Electrophoresis (CE). Both techniques are applied in our group.