DEPENDENCE OF THE PRODUCTION-RATE ON THE RELATIVE RETENTION OF 2 COMPONENTS IN PREPARATIVE CHROMATOGRAPHY

The maximum possible production rate which can be obtained with a given chromatographic system, under optimized conditions, increases approximately as the third power of (alpha-1)/alpha. The optimum conditions themselves depend also on the relative retention. In contrast, the production rate of a given column (constant column length, L, and particle size, d(p)) increases more slowly, nearly in proportion to the square of (alpha-1)/alpha when the ratio d(p)2/L is lower than its optimum values. These relationships are valid under both touching band and overlapping band conditions.