Zone Electrophoresis

 

Zone electrophoresis includes a number of somewhat related electrophoretic techniques that differ fundamentally from moving boundary electrophoresis in that the individual migrating components can be completely separated from one another. In moving boundary electrophoresis only he first and last components can be isolated in pure form in very limited quantities. Shortly after the invention of boundary electrophoresis, Martin described some very efficient liquid chromatography techniques (paper and column chromatography) and invented gas chromatography; these were separation methods that allowed the complete and exclusive elution of the individual components of a mixture surrounded only by solvents or salt solutions and, thus, were very effective for both analytical and preparative purposes. Scientists involved in developing electrophoretic techniques immediately started developing their methods further in attempts to simulate the same type of separations. Their first approach was to develop an electrophoretic simulation of paper chromatography to which they gave the name paper electrophoresis.