Application of the Zone Melting Technique to Metal Chelate Systems. VII. Computer-assisted Consideration on the Solute Distribution Profiles in Zone Melting Process

Abstract

Abstract A new equation is derived which gives the solute distribution along a column after a zone melting chromatography (ZMG) process, where the initial charge of a sample mixture of k<1 is placed on the upper end of the column, one zone length high. The solute distribution differs significantly from that obtained by Pfann’s equation on an infinite ingot, in the neighborhood of the upper end as expected from the difference in the initial conditions. The solute distribution is calculated numerically for the case in which the initial charge is placed by several zone lengths on the column top. The present multiple zone charge method shows little difference in solute distribution from the conventional single zone charge method, having the advantage of increasing the sample amount to be fractionated. Numerical calculation is performed to find the zone length with which the greatest amount of the solute of k<1 is concentrated into the bottom fraction of a certain length of a given column after each zone pass. A series of resulting zone lengths, showing a stepwise shortening, pass after pass, provides the optimum mode of decrease in the zone length.