HPLC: High-Performance Liquid Chromatography

High-performance liquid chromatography, also known as high-pressure liquid chromatography, is an analytical chromatography technique used to separate mixtures into their components through the various differences in affinity of the components to the stationary phase (physico-chemical properties). This causes a difference in retention times for the different components.

However, retention times alone are not enough to determine the identity of the components, a detector is required to conclude the identity of the components.

There are many detectors available for HPLC systems, although we will only be covering two detectors in the subsequent posts:

The Photo Diode Array detector (PDA)

The Mass Spectrometer detector (MS)