A new instrument for automated multiple development in thin-layer chromatography

A new AMD instrument made in our laboratory is described in this paper. The main advantages of the instrument are very low cost both of construction and in use. Compared with ascending development in conventional instruments, a laboratory-made horizontal sandwich chamber is used for development, and, with the help of a series of special accessories, no obvious mobile phase remains in the distributor after each step; this saves a large amount of solvent. All the components of the instrument are easy to obtain, so the average worker in a chemical laboratory could construct all the instrument except the control unit. An application of the instrument is described; the results obtained were satisfactory.