Comparison Of PC And TLC:
Even though PC and TLC both are considered as planar chromatographic techniques where a plain or flat surface is used and the main parameter is Rf. But, both these are widely different in terms of stationary support, developing chamber, detection methods and even in applications.
The PC has limited applications but the TLC has wide range of applications especially in drug industry and biochemical processes. For this purpose, the PC methods have been superseded through TLC in analytical laboratories though it is still used for demonstrating the general principles of chromatographic separations. A comparison of TLC and PC separation of nucleotides is shown in Figure.
(a) (b)
Fig.A comparison of separation of nucleotides by TLC and PC under identical conditions: Solvent; saturated ammonium sulphate-1M sodium acetate-iso- propanol (80:18:2) (a) Thin layer chromatogram using cellulose as adsorbent, Run time, 90 min(b) Paper chromatogram using Scheicher and Schull 2034 paper, Run time, 135 min
In the above figure one-dimensional development using identical conditions shows the superiority of cellulose layer TLC over PC for separating various mixtures. It might be observed in which TLC displays decreased degree of spot diffusion or better resolution especially for samples 1 to 4.