Applications

Foods usually originate as botanical products and therefore are naturally variable as well as complex. HPTLC can confirm identities of complex mixtures as well as detect adulteration. HPTLC is the first method of analysis because it is simple, risk free, fast, economical and analyses 100-120 samples a day, without producing much waste. Anchrom has waged a war against adulteration and already created 50 internationally acceptable methods to detect adulterants, at a low cost for market surveillance in their HPTLC Lab in mumbai.

HPTLC Fingerprint is a technique adopted by the US & European Pharmacopoeias recently for the purpose of identification of “botanical materials”, all of which are very complex in nature. HPTLC Fingerprinting is the representation of the phytochemical composition of a plant extract or formulation, in the form of a conventional image i.e. a photograph. Fingerprint Chromatography can also be used to monitor batch to batch consistency and stability studies of herbal medicines, dietary supplements etc.

High Performance Thin Layer Chromatography (HPTLC) is a valuable tool to check purity, impurity of any non-volatile organic industrial materials such as dyes, surfactants, pesticides, perfumery compounds, intermediates etc. It is far simpler, cheaper and easier to understand than other similar methods of analysis. HPTLC can be used very effectively in reverse engineering because it enables rapid comparison with e.g. standard provided by a buyer or other similar products in the market. Chemical reactions can be studied very quickly e.g. within 2 hours. Complex mixtures like biological samples, reaction mixtures, fermentation broth can be easily chromatographed without much sample preparation.

Dyes and intermediates are non-volatile organic substances and so best suited for HPTLC analysis. HPTLC analysis is very low cost and results are “visible”. Coloured substances are therefore particularly ideal for HPTLC analysis. HPTLC enables comparison of different samples or with standard, analysis of competition samples apart from purity and impurity determination. All kinds of optical brightner, intermediates, dyes, banned amines can be analysed by HPTLC.

HPTLC is a most versatile analytical technique which offers a great separation power using precise sample application, software-controlled chromatographic steps, chromatogram development and scanning and photo documentation.
Separated samples can be visually checked on the plate is an unique aspect of HPTLC. Biotechnology industry is considered as one of the most research-intensive sectors in the world. Therefore, shorter analysis time, low sample analysis cost per sample, minimal contamination possibilities and reliable accurate results are essential which are provided by HPTLC. HPTLC can analyse different samples simultaneously with zero risk of cross contamination. HPTLC also offers the advantage of evaluating a plate by any specific process using different detection modes (UV, fluorescence, etc.) By coupling HPTLC with a MS or other suitable methods such as NMR, FTIR, ESI, MALDI, one can identify and or confirm the chemical structures of analyte under study.

Sunscreen products are widely used across the globe due to their benefits of preventing skin from tanning and sunburns. The UV filters used in such formulations protect the skin from harmful UV rays by forming a thin, protective layer on the skin thereby blocking or absorbing UV rays from penetrating the skin. The safety of such products is of vital importance since they tend to interact with the biological matrices. In order to shield the consumer health from any harmful effects, HPTLC technique can be employed for the detection of such filters, the identity of which can be further confirmed by mass spectrometer.