Methodological developments in overpressured-layer chromatography

Summary Since its introduction around 1977, OPLC has found widespread application and its methodology has been further developed. A possible development is gradient elution. Different continuous development methods (e.g. with eluent changeover, multistep gradient) and the possible system configurations for their execution are discussed. The advantages of the newly developed continuous development techniques are compared to earlier data. The most versatile method is demonstrated on lipid samples derived from human plasma, giving separation of six lipid classes and intra-class separation of the most polar classes in the same run.