ADMICELLAR CHROMATOGRAPHY - SEPARATION AND CONCENTRATION OF ISOMERS USING TWO-DIMENSIONAL SOLVENTS

Immobilized surfactant aggregates at a solid/liquid interface can act as two-dimensional solvents to increase the interfacial concentrations of organic compounds selectively. This phenomenon is the basis for a new separation process presented here, admicellar chromatography. The technique offers certain advantages over conventional chromatographic separations. Batch and column separations of isomers of heptanol are used to illustrate the concepts of the process. Equilibrium calculations with single component data are found to give reasonable predictions for the batch separation of the isomers.