The term “chromatography”
was coined by Mikhail Tsvet drawing on two Greek Roots: Chroma (‘colour’) and graphein (‘writing’). But the word might also be a play on the
botanist’s own surname, which mean ‘color’ in Russian. According to this interpretation,
‘chromatography’ would literally mean ‘Tsvet’s writing’.
Analytical tool – A
scientist uses compasses on a chromatogram to measure the distance travelled by
each constituent element of the substance under investigation. This colorized
digital image shows the clear separation between the constituents.
Chromatography 1903
Like light rays in
the spectrum, the different components of a pigment mixture, obeying a law, are
resolved on the calcium carbonate column and can then be qualitatively and
quantitatively determined. This is how Russian botanist Mikhail Tsvet attempted
to explain chromatography, the method of color analysis that he had invented.
He first presented
his finding to scientific peers as early as 1901. However, in 1903, he
published an account of them for wider consumption in proceedings of the Warsaw
Society of Naturalists.
Although Tsvet was very
interested in plant pigments! The problem was having obtained a plant extract,
how could it be separated into its constituent elements to facilitate further
study? He found the answer quite by chance. Having prepared an extract of
spinach with petroleum ether, he filtered the solution by passing it through a column
of chalk (Calcium Carbonate) in a vertical glass tube.
As he did so,
distinct areas of yellow and green pigment appeared in different parts of the column.
Tsvet realized that each pigment had traveled a specific distance before being
deposited in the chalk. To obtain pure components of the pigment, all he had to
do was to take samples from each color zone. This was the basic principle
behind the science of chromatography.
Neglect and Revival
Tsvet’s work
excited about some interest. But it was soon forgotten in all the upheaval of the
First World War and the Russian Revolution. Tsvet died in 1919, aged just 47. Then,
in 1931, two biochemists at the University of Heidelberg, Edgar Lederer and
Richard Johann Kuhn, were conducting their own research into plant pigments and
resurrected his technique.
Several new methods
of chromatography were devised thereafter along essentially the same lines.
That is by filtering a liquid or a gaseous compound through a medium – paper for
example, or a porous material a gas, an immobilized liquid. That retains each
of the separate components at a particular level.
Chromatography has
since become an indispensable tool in organic and biochemical research. It is
used for example; to detect drugs in athletes' blood samples to isolate a
particular ingredient for drug manufacture and more generally to separate analyze
and identify different elements within compounds.
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| Mikhail Tsvet (Photo Credit - Wikipedia) |
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