Chromatography
Cromatografía de adsorción
- Date
- 1903-1906 · confidence high
- Place
- University of Warsaw, Poland (Russian Empire)
- Credited to
- Mikhail Tsvet
- People
- 👤 Mijaíl Tsvet1872–1919
- Field
- Matter & energy
What was discovered
Tsvet separates leaf pigments by passing an extract through a column of calcium carbonate: each pigment moves at a different speed and forms a band. A universal separation technique in chemistry and biology.
Ignored for decades; rediscovered by Kuhn and Lederer in 1931. Merged with 'Chromatography' (duplicate, 23-09-2026).
What it led to
- Paper, thin-layer, gas and HPLC chromatography
- Biochemistry of proteins and nucleic acids
- Environmental and forensic analysis
- Protein biochemistry and sequencing (insulin, Sanger)
- Pharmaceutical industry and quality control
- Gas chromatography and HPLC
Built on
- adsorption in earth (fuller's earth) columns
- pigment chemistry
- Plant pigment chemistry
- Adsorption
Made possible
- Penicillin purification and mass production (Florey, Chain, Heatley)1940-1943
- Insulin amino acid sequence (Sanger)1951-1955
- gas chromatography (James and Martin, 1952)
- HPLC
- protein sequencing
- Paper chromatography
- Gas chromatography