The role of planar chromatography in medicinal plant research

This paper summarizes the role of planar chromatography (PC) in medicinal and aromatic plant (MAP) research and development, and demonstrates the importance of the technique, after extraction, in the analysis of MAP (identification and quantitative determination of the separated compound/s), in the purification and isolation process, and in different types of screening procedure. Special attention is paid to analytical, micropreparative and preparative forced-flow techniques, for example overpressured-layer chromatography (OPLC) and rotation planar chromatography (RPC). The special features of analytical, micropreparative, and preparative layer chromatography (PLC), OPLC, and RPC are compared in tables. Purification and isolation procedures using forced-flow techniques are shown in flowcharts. Some applications, relating to different classes of substance, are presented to demonstrate the versatility of various planar chromatographic techniques.