RAPID SIMULATION OF CHROMATOGRAPHIC BAND PROFILES ON PERSONAL COMPUTERS

The calculating power and speed of microcomputers has rapidly increase d during the last few years, while their cost has decreased almost as fast. As a result, it has become possible for most chromatographers to calculate rapidly the individual elution band profiles of the compone nts of mixtures by integrating the differential mass balance equation of chromatography. It has become possible to find out rapidly what wou ld be the effect of possible modifications of the experimental paramet ers. For conventional columns having a few thousand plates, the comput ation takes between a few seconds and a few minutes, provided a perfor ming algorithm is used.