Simple chamber for temperature-controlled planar chromatography.

This article describes a construction of a simple developing device designed for temperature control of thin-layer chromatographic plates. The plates can be developed by the ascending technique under temperature gradient or non-gradient conditions. Saturated or unsaturated chamber conditions can be easily selected. The effects that give rise to pseudo-non-linear Van't Hoff plots, e.g. a temperature irregularity inside the chamber or heat evolving during solvent adsorption near the migrating front of the mobile phase are minimized. The preliminary temperature-retention studies show that the device is suitable for temperatures ranging from -20 to 60 degrees C. Using a binary mobile phase mixture (methanol-water, 70:30, v/v) the velocity of the mobile phase front on the HPTLC RP-18W plates at different temperatures was investigated. Under these conditions the retention profiles of four natural estrogens (estetrol, estriol, 17beta-estradiol and estrone) were examined. The application of the described device for temperature-retention studies is also discussed.