Van Deemter Equation

In chromatography, the Van Deemter equation, named for Jan van Deemter, relates the variance per unit length of a separation column to the linear velocity of the mobile phase by accounting for the physical, kinetic and thermodynamic properties of the separation, including pathways within the column, axial and longitudinal diffusion, and mass transfer kinetics between the stationary and mobile phases. It takes the form of a hyperbolic function predicting an optimum mobile-phase velocity at which the variance per unit column length is minimized and the column's efficiency, measured in theoretical plates, is maximized; a pressure correction is applied when the mobile phase is a gas. The equation was the first application of rate theory to the chromatographic elution process. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/