Archer j p martin nobel lecture

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• Publié par: opakito
• Nombre de lectures: 108
• Langue: Français

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A R C H E R J. P . M A R T I N

The develo pment o f partitio n chro mato graphy

Nobel Lecture, December 12, 1952

The subject o f p artitio n chro mato grap hy has no w an extensive literature and Iccasio n such as this it is better to d feel o n an o o fescribe the d evelo pment the metho d rather than to summarize the present po sitio n o r to attempt to p ut fo rw ard any o f the mo re recent ad vances, w hich have been d escribed elsew here. Perhap s ind eed , if eno ugh histo ries, w ritten w hile the id eas are still fresh in the mind s o f the p eo p le co ncerned , are available fo r a variety o f d isco veries o r inventio ns, it may eventually be po ssible to lay d o w n so me o f the p rincip les required to facilitate the o btaining o f fruitful results in sci entific research in general. Clearly also the backgro und o f kno w led ge at the time the ad vance w as mad e w ill be best und ersto o d if the histo ry is as recent as po ssible. Partitio n chro mato graphy resulted fro m the marrying o f tw o techniques, that o f chro mato graphy and that o f co untercurrent so lvent extractio n. A ll o f the ideas are simple and had peo ples’ minds been directed that w ay the meth o d w o uld have flo urished p erhap s a century earlier. In fact the mind s o f labo rato ry w o rkers seem to have been clo sed to co untercurrent pro ced ures, w hich w ere ad o p ted in ind ustry, e.g. in d istillatio n and lixiviatio n, lo ng be fo re they w ere generally used in the labo rato ry. In ind ustry the use o f the co untercurrent p rincip le led to great eco no mies in heat and so lvents, and its value w as o bvio us: in the labo rato ry such eco no mies are o f co mp aratively little imp o rtance and the mo re subtle p o int that by its aid a vast imp ro ve ment in certain d ifficult sep aratio ns co uld be effected w as no t ap p reciated . Ind eed it is o nly w ithin the last tw enty years that high efficiency d istillatio n apparatus has been available in the labo rato ry and tw entyfive years elapsed after Tsvett’ s classical w o rk o n chro mato graphy befo re the latter metho d w as p ut to general use. Synge and I w ere fo rtunate to w o rk at a time w hen the need fo r new metho ds w as apparent to many peo ple, so that o ur metho ds hav e gained general accep tance in ten years. I w as fascinated by fractio nal d istillatio n as a metho d w hile still a scho o l bo y, and built in the cellar o f my ho me, w hich w as my co mbined w o rksho p and labo rato ry, d istillatio n co lumns, p acked w ith co ke o f grad ed size, so me