chromatography
Meaning of chromatography: Chromatography is a laboratory technique that separates the components of a mixture as they travel at different rates through an absorbing material.
Definition of chromatography
Chromatography is a laboratory technique used to separate the individual substances that make up a mixture. A liquid or gas carries the mixture through a column, sheet of paper, or specially coated plate containing an absorbing material, and the different substances in the mixture move through this material at different rates depending on their chemical properties.
Because each substance travels at its own characteristic rate, chromatography separates a mixture into distinct bands or peaks corresponding to its individual components. These separated substances may be visible directly, as distinct colored bands, or detected using specialized instruments that record where and when each substance emerges.
Chromatography is used widely in medicine and research, including identifying and measuring specific substances in blood or other body fluids, checking the purity of a manufactured drug, and separating complex biological mixtures into their individual components for further study.
Used in a sentence
Chromatography was used in the laboratory to identify the individual components of the blood sample.
Good to know
Chromatography separates a mixture based on the physical and chemical properties of its components rather than identifying any single substance directly, so a specific detection method is often needed to interpret what each separated band represents.
Word origin
Where “chromatography” comes from
Formed from Greek chroma, meaning color, and -graphy, from graphein, meaning to write or record, reflecting the technique's origin in separating visibly colored plant pigments.