Chromatographic methods in inorganic chemistry

Abstract

The first application of a chromatographic method to analytical problems was by Tswett, a Russian botanist, in 1906. His work passed almost unnoticed for twenty-five years, but since 1930 there have been many applications of his methods, and in many branches of organic chemistry chromatography has been successfully employed. Inorganic chromatography is a more recent development, the first important work in this field being published in 1937. (1) The literature of this branch of the subject is restricted to a few papers by the original German workers. Complete accounts of the apparatus and technique of both organic and inorganic chromatography are available in the treatises of Zechmeister and Cholnoky (2) and Strain (3). Only a brief account of these matters will be given here.