Articles — HPTLC

As part of current good manufacturing practices (GMP), the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) requires a dietary supplement to consistently meet established specifications for identity, purity, strength, and composition. A botanical represents a highly complex mixture of natural compounds. Botanicals used in dietary supplements contain any part of a plant or a preparation of a plant, including extracts.   The chemical composition of botanicals varies based on numerous factors, including where a plant is grown, its developmental stage, and harvesting methods. It may appear that GMP testing for botanicals is more complex than for synthetic pharmaceuticals.  High-performance thin-layer chromatography...

High-performance thin-layer chromatography (HPTLC) is a powerful analytical technique that relies on polarity differences to separate the components of a mixture. HPTLC is used to assess substance purity and identify constituents and active substances in a mixture. Pharmaceutical analysis, food and drug analysis, environmental analysis, biochemistry, and most chem-based fields depend on HPTLC. HPTLC is an enhancement of ordinary thin-layer chromatography (TLC) and follows a nearly identical process to TLC. It will be easier to understand HPTLC if you first have a basic understanding of ordinary TLC.    What is TLC?   TLC is a sub-class of planar chromatography. It is...