Partition chromatography
The stationary phase of partition chromatography is a liquid supported on an inert solid. The mobile
phase may be liquid (liquid-liquid partition chromatography) or a gas (gas-liquid chromatography,
GLC). In the normal mode of operations of liquid-liquid partition, a polar stationary phase (e.g.,
methanol on silica) is used with a nonpolar mobile phase (e.g. hexane). This favors retention of polar
compounds and elution of nonpolar compounds and is called normal-phase chromatography. If a
nonpolar stationary phase is used, with a polar mobile phase, then nonpolar solutes are retained
more and polar solutes more readily eluted. This is called reversed-phase chromatography and is
actually the most widely used.