Surface area:

The surface area and pore diameter of a given adsorbent vary widely along with the method of manufacture. Within adsorption chromatography, a separation depends on the transport of the molecules through the system and on the interchange of the molecules between an adsorbed phase and a liquid phase. If the volume of the adsorbed phase per unit quantity of the adsorbent is low, both the amount of interchange between the phases and the amount of separation will be small. For this reason, when dealing with large samples, it is important to select an adsorbent with a large surface area.