A Computer Simulation of Linear Gel Permeation Chromatography

Abstract

A phenomenological model based on a set of partial differential equations and boundary conditions is proposed for chromatography and, in particular, for gel permeation chromatography. The intractable boundary value problem, which does not have a closed form solution, was handled through the use of numerical methods employing a very large and very fast computer (IBM 360/195). The chromatograms generated by the computer simulator were compared with experimental chromatograms of various molecular weight polymers. The computer generated overlay plots of the simulated and experimental chromatograms showed good agreement (the two plots almost superimposed). The effect of other parameters on the chromatogram, i.e., flow rate, stationary phase bead size, solute diffusion coefficient in the stationary and mobile phases, and the partition coefficient were also investigated. © 1973, Taylor & Francis Group, LLC. All rights reserved.