Planar Chromatography, TLC, dates back to 1938 when Izmailov and Shraiber at the Pharmaceutical Institute in Kharkov, Ukraine first demonstrated circular thin layer chromatography, which makes the technique 70 years old. The CAMAG CBS system dates back to 1965 and has been distributed on average about twice a year and with the latest issue of 2008 celebrates its 100th issue.
CAMAG's UK distributor, OMICRON RESEARCH, has limited supplies of the latest edition of the Camag Bibliography Service, CBS 100, in which some 150 abstracts of HPTLC methods covering pharmaceutical products, dyes, food, steroids and environmental analysis are published.
One article describes a new method for coupling automated HPTLC and ESI-MS and its use in determining caffeine in headache tablets and in energy drinks.
A new Automatic Developing Chamber, ADC 2, is also described in the CBS 100. This new instrument features a closed loop circulating system that accelerates and directs a high velocity stream of air across the plate, allowing short, uniform and reproducible conditioning of the TLC plate. The ADC 2 has been shown to reduce the overall standard deviation by a factor of three.