Techniques used in the separation and identification of chemical Essay

Techniques used in the separation and identification of chemical compound and their real world applications - Essay Example In this technique, the sample to be analyzed is passed through an adsorbent. The components of the mixture will interact with it differently, resulting in separation of the elements (Scoog & Holler, 1992). HPLC has a wide range of application, for example it is used in pharmaceutical companies in the separation of vitamin C, and it also applied in the legal profession by detecting illegal substances such as cocaine in the urine (Ballinger et al., 2011). HPLC can be said to be a mass transfer process that involves adsorption. A typical HPLC instrument has a detector, sampler and a pump. The sampler is used to collect the sample, then the pump is used to pass sample through a mobile phase, which mostly consist of an adsorbent such as silica gel. In the mobile phase, the sample mixture will separate because they have different adsorption rates. It is this difference in adsorption rates that HPLC principle relies on. Finally, the detector is used to separate the different components (Kebbekus & Mitra, 1998). HPLC is one of the most preferred technique in the food industries. It is mostly used in the quality control. HPLC is preferred to other techniques, because it is cheap to maintain and it does not need a very qualified personnel to run it (Ballinger et al., 2011). An example, where HPLC is applied is the sugar cane industries. After sugar cane has been crushed, it is always squeezed to remove the juice. The juice is then treated with chemicals to kill any fungi which is available in it. It is at this stage, where HPLC finds its use. This is because some of the chemicals always remain in the final product. In connection to this, HPLC is always used to determine, if there are any traces of the chemicals in the final sugar. If there are any, it is then taken back for treatment (Scoog &Holler, 1992). The main limitation of this technique is that it cannot be used for very complex chemical elements. In