Forced-flow planar chromatography in the rear view mirror

Mobile phase progress in planar stationary phase can be evoked by either external or internal forces. An internal force is capillarity, while gravity, electric field, a pump and centrifugal forces belong to external forces. Overpressured layer chromatography gives a widely used special chapter of forced-flow planar chromatography, a special bridge between high-performance liquid column chromatography and thin-layer chromatography (TLC). A simple and special rule characterizes the progress of mobile phase. Optimal efficiency is composed by the doubled effect of flow resulting from the pump-forced mobile phase (convex profile of laminar flow) and capillary forces on the dry stationary phase (concave laminar flow). This review describes the most important aspects of forced-flow TLC, including how the set-ups are developed and also the progress of detection methods used.