Countercurrent chromatography (CCC) is a generic term covering all forms of liquid-liquid chromatography that use a support-free liquid stationary phase held in place by a simple centrifugal or complex centrifugal force field. Biphasic liquid systems are used with one liquid phase being the stationary phase and the other being the mobile phase. Although initiated almost 30 years ago, CCC lacked reliable columns. This is changing now, and the newly designed centrifuges appearing on the market make excellent CCC columns. This review focuses on the advantages of a liquid stationary phase and addresses the chromatographic theory of CCC. The main difference with classical liquid chromatography (LC) is the variable volume of the stationary phase. There are mainly two different ways to obtain a liquid stationary phase using centrifugal forces, the hydrostatic way and the hydrodynamic way. These two kinds of CCC columns are described and compared. The reported applications of CCC in analytical chemistry and comparison with other separation and enrichment methods show that the technique can be successfully used in the analysis of plants and other natural products, for the separation of biochemicals and pharmaceuticals, for the separation of alkaloids from medical herbs, in food analysis, etc. On the basis of the studies of the last two decades, recommendations are also given for the application of CCC in trace inorganic analysis and in radioanalytical chemistry.

Environmentally significant phosphorus species in water and phosphorus fractions in sediments are briefly discussed and the methods for their determination are described. One of the most critical analytical steps is the separation of the different forms which, after conversion into orthophosphates, may be determined by a multitude of various techniques. Spectrophotometric methods are often preferred for routine analysis. Several rapid automatic methods for the separation and determination of orthophosphate, linear polyphosphates, cyclic condensed phosphates and lower oxidation state anions of phosphorus, which may exist in natural and waste waters, have been developed. They are mainly based on the use of flow-injection analysis, high-performance liquid chromatography including ion chromatography, capillary electrophoresis and a few of other techniques. These methods have been described and critically evaluated.

Comparative assessment of the prospects of development of heavy petroleum feedstock (HPF) upgrading technologies in terms of the possibility of removal and recovery of metals contained in the...