Plant analysis 2008--planar chromatography.

For 70 years, planar chromatography has been closely connected with the analysis of plants. Also today in its most advanced form "high performance thin-layer chromatography" (HPTLC), the technique plays an important role in identification of medicinal plants and dietary supplements. Detection of adulteration and quantitative determination of marker substances are other widely used applications. The advancement of instrumentation and methodological concepts has created a basis for reliable qualitative and quantitative results in HPTLC. Remarkable progress has been made in the manageability of the entire planar chromatographic process, particularly in the control of chromatogram development and the utilization of images to obtain and compare information about separated samples. Integration of biological detection systems as well as hyphenation to mass spectrometry has widened the applicability of planar chromatography as an analytical technique that is both orthogonal and complementary to HPLC.