Thin layer chromatography (TLC) is a chromatographic technique used to separate the components of a mixture using a thin stationary phase supported by an inert backing. It is a highly versatile separation method that is used to isolate non-volatile mixtures. TLC is a low-cost, simple, and quick method that has a high sensitivity and good reproducibility. It is used by many industries and fields of research, including pharmaceutical production, clinical analysis, industrial chemistry, environmental toxicology, food chemistry, water, inorganic, and pesticide analysis, dye purity, cosmetics, plant materials, and herbal analysis. Some of the applications of TLC include:
- Qualitative testing of various medicines such as sedatives, local anesthetics, anticonvulsant tranquilizers, analgesics, antihistamines, steroids, and hypnotics.
- Separation or isolation of biochemical metabolites from blood plasma, urine, body fluids, serum, etc. .
- Identification of natural products like essential oils or volatile oil, fixed oil, glycosides, waxes, alkaloids, etc. .
- Separation of multicomponent pharmaceutical formulations.
- Purification of samples and direct comparison between the sample and the authentic sample.
- Separation and identification of colors, sweetening agents, and preservatives in the food industry.
TLC is a very commonly used technique in synthetic chemistry for identifying compounds, determining their purity, and following the progress of a reaction. It also permits the optimization of the solvent system for a given separation problem. In comparison with column chromatography, it only requires small quantities of the compound and is much faster as well.
