Biography & Contributions

Mikhail Tswett was a Russian botanist born on March 21, 1872 – died on
June 26, 1919. He invented the chromatography method in the year of
1906.
Tswett invented chromatography in 1900 during his research on plant
pigments. He used liquid-adsorption column chromatography with calcium
carbonate as adsorbent and petrol ether/ethanol mixtures as eluent to
separate chlorophylls and carotenoids.
Tswett’s first study towards solvents action on chlorophyll involves -
Alcohol-petroleum ether solutions of chlorophyll were digested in a flask
with several strips of filter paper and the solvent was distilled off in a
vacuum; by this treatment, the pigment was taken up by the paper. The dry
green paper now behaved toward solvents exactly like the green leaves,
and pure petroleum ether took up only the carotin, while the addition of
alcohol produced decolonization of the paper at once.
The phenomena mentioned at the beginning of his research paper, which
still remained puzzling, therefore depended on adsorption of the pigments,
on the mechanical, molecular affinity of the substances for the chloroplast
stroma which could indeed be overcome by alcohol, ether, etc., but not by
petroleum hydrocarbons. However, if the pigments were removed from the
sphere of molecular forces, as, for example, by cooking or warming the
tissues, which, as is well known, forces little green droplets from the
chloroplasts, then these pigments dissolved easily in petroleum ether and
the dark green extract was obtained.
It follows from the foregoing that it is impossible for chlorophyll to be
enclosed in the chloroplasts in the form of microscopically definable grana
and it must be that the grana themselves possess an insoluble adsorbing
substrate. Moreover, the grana theory is not well grounded
micrographically. It was mentioned above that the chlorophyll pigments
(except for carotin) bound to the filter paper from the petroleum ether were
held firmly by an adsorption force.
As expected, these pigments were taken from the petroleum ether solution
by the filter paper. However, not only cellulose but all solid bodies insoluble
in petroleum hydrocarbons adsorb chlorophyll and, if used in finely
powdered condition, decolorize petroleum ether partly or completely. From
this point of view, he had studied more than a hundred substances
belonging to different chemical systems and always with essentially the
same result.