Why Chromatography Is Important

Chromatography is the separation of compounds to allow us to see the different colours of that compound, for instance we may use chromatography in a school lab to see the real colour compounds of plants and grass, by using chemicals such as acetone we it will allow the object to break compounds and thus we can see the true colour of the grass.

In today's society there are many real world applications which use the chromatography technique in their line of work, an example of one of these applications would be in the work of forensic testing, within this area of work special forensic scientists use gas chromatography to help them investigate criminal cases. For instance, if a building caught on a fire they would would investigate arson verification this is when they would use chromatography to identify some of the chemicals which may have been responsible for the fire . Once they have recognised all forms of chemicals, they will analyse the results to see if there was any foul play and if the
This very simply translates that you can find these compound atoms in various areas and they are all identical in physical properties, mass and composition, but very different biologically e.g thalidomide has two isomers one which can cause birth defects if a women takes them in the early stages of pregnancy and the other is harmless. Thus, the pharmaceutical industry need to ensure the products they test are 100% safe to use otherwise they will both lose money and patients.