Chromatography "has come a very long way"

Chromatography is a rapidly developing area of chemical analysis, which has "come a very long way".

This is the opinion of Brett Paull, director of the Irish Separation Science Cluster at Dublin City University, who told the Royal Society of Chemistry it has been a fast-growing industry in the last ten years.

"Today you can separate 30 or 40 solutes in five minutes that ten years ago would have taken two hours," he explained.

According to Mr Paull, future progression requires instrumentation to catch up, especially with particle chromatography.

At the moment, while scientists can make very small particles, the equipment required to deal with such materials needs to be upgraded slightly, he added.

The specialist also noted the interaction of solutes and surfaces as being of growing interest to researchers.

Liquid chromatography was recently employed by South Korean laboratory scientists in order to discover what caused one of the country's naval vessels to sink.