Cotton Trick for Column Chromatography
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Great techniques don’t have to be expensive or expansive. They’re often clever solutions to routine problems and this Technique of the Week is no exception.
As both and undergrad and graduate student, we had a “tool” for packing the cotton or glass wool in the bottom of a column that consisted of a dowel rod with what appeared to be a chop stick duct taped to the end. Since the chop stick was also wood, eight out of ten times, the cotton would get caught on the very tool we were trying to pack it with. So you pull the dowel out, reshape the cotton and start over again.
If it happens once, it’s kind of amusing. Twice- the blood pressure begins to increase. Three times- you’re ready to swing the column like a baseball bat into the wall…
Thanks to this trick, we can finally put down the beta-blockers and get on with our work…
