High performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) is usually the technique of choice for separating and analysing complex mixtures of small molecules in laboratories around the globe. As such, a whole range of specialist materials for particular types of analyte have been developed. French researchers, however, have now developed a novel approach to separation and analysis based on NMR that uses a simple solid support, such as porous silica gels.
Guilhem Pagès, Corinne Delaurent, and Stefano Caldarelli of the University of Provence and Paul Cézanne in Marseille, France, recently developed an alternative for identifying components in a mixture that avoids the complexities of chromatography and relies instead on solid-enhanced diffusion-based NMR.
“The determination of the components of assemblies of small molecules is an extremely common task in chemical labs,” the researchers say. A method that mimics part of the chromatography process can they explain achieve good separation for certain types of common mixture but using only very simple chromatographic materials, which not only simplifies the analytical process but is far less expensive than employing sophisticated materials.
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