Archer j p martin nobel lecture

AR C H E RJ. P. MA R T I N The development of partition chromato graphy Nobel Lecture, December 12, 1952 The subject of partitio nchro mato grap hyhas now an extensive literature and I ccasio nsuch as this it is better to dfeel on an oo fescribe the develo pment the method rather than to summarize the presentpo sitio no rto attemptto p utfo rw ardany of the more recent advances, which have been described elsew here.Perhap sind eed ,if enough histories, written while the ideas are still fresh in the minds of the peo p leco ncerned ,are available for a variety of d isco verieso rinventio ns,it may eventually be possible to lay do w nso meo f the princip lesrequired to facilitate the obtaining of fruitful results in scientific research in general. Clearly also the background of know led geat the time the advance was made will be best understo o dif the history is as recent as possible. Partitio nchro mato graphyresulted from the marrying of two techniques, that of chromato graphyand thato fco untercurrentso lventextractio n.A llo f the ideas are simple and had peoples’ minds been directed thatw aythe metho dw o uldhave flourished perhap sa century earlier. In fact the minds of labo rato ryw o rkersseem to have been closed to countercurrent proced ures, w hichw eread o p tedin industry, e.g. in distillatio nand lixiviation, long befo rethey were generally used in the laborato ry.