FIELD-FLOW FRACTIONATION

Field-flow fractionation (FFF) is a family of high-resolution techniques capable of separating and characterizing materials in the macromolecular and colloidal range, and beyond. Applications have spanned a 1015-fold mass range, extending from molecules under 1000 molecular weight to particles 100 μm in diameter. Particles as diverse as cells, subcellular particles, viruses, liposomes, protein aggregates, fly ash, waterborne colloids, and industrial latices and pigments have been resolved. Macromolecular materials include a variety of organic and water-soluble synthetic polymers and copolymers, as well as humic materials, proteins, and DNAs. These investigations show that FFF thrives on heterogeneous samples whose complexities baffle many analytical techniques. It thus is ideally poised for tackling the increasingly difficult macromolecular-supramolecular problems emerging in the biomedical, environmental, and industrial arenas.