RAPID SIMULATION OF CHROMATOGRAPHIC BAND PROFILES ON PERSONAL COMPUTERS

The calculating power and speed of microcomputers has rapidly increased during the last few years, while their cost has decreased almost as fast. As a result, it has become possible for most chromatographers to calculate rapidly the individual elution band profiles of the components of mixtures by integrating the differential mass balance equation of chromatography. It has become possible to find out rapidly what would be the effect of possible modifications of the experimental parameters. For conventional columns having a few thousand plates, the computation takes between a few seconds and a few minutes, provided a performing algorithm is used.