Displacement Chromatography on Ion-Exchange Columns of the Carboxylic Acids in Plant Tissue Extracts

Abstract

THE importance of many carboxylic acids in metabolism makes it desirable that techniques for their estimation should, in general, be applicable to extracts of plant and animal tissues. It is essential that such extracts containing low concentrations of the significant acids should be as free as possible from inorganic salts, sugars and pigments. Such impurities, because of their relative abundance, can seriously detract from the value of paper chromatograms obtained using the technique of Lugg and Overell¹, which otherwise provides a rapid and convenient method of simultaneous separation and identification of carboxylic acids. Even the customary ether extraction of plant tissues does not always satisfy these purity requirements.