CONSOLIDATION OF PARTICLE BEDS AND PACKING OF CHROMATOGRAPHIC COLUMNS

A variety of complementary evidence reviewed here demonstrates that th e packing of chromatographic columns is heterogeneous. It is denser an d less well organized close to the column wall than in the center of t he column. The mechanism of particle consolidation under stress explai ns the origin of this phenomenon and provides a fundamental justificat ion to what is known in column chromatography as ''the wall effect''.