What is gel filtration used for?
Similarly, what is the principle of gel filtration?
Gel filtration is a technique in which the separation of components is based on the difference in molecular weight or size. It is the simplest and mildest of all the chromatography techniques and separates molecules on the basis of differences in size.
Additionally, what elutes first from a gel filtration column?
Because molecules that have a large size compared to the pore size of the stationary phase have very little entrance into the pores, these larger sized molecules elute first from the column. Therefore, smaller molecules elute last and larger molecules elute first in Size Exclusion Chromatography.
In gel filtration chromatography, the stationary phase is comprised of porous beads packed into a column. The mobile phase is the running buffer or other solvent. Sample components partition between the stationary and mobile phases based on their size-based accessibility to the pores of the matrix beads.