Flash chromatography, also known as low pressure or medium pressure liquid chromatography, is an easy to use, versatile technique which operates at pressures of 50 - 200 psi, as compared to HPLC, and UHPLC which operates at pressures up to 10,000psi.
Flash (fast) chromatography is a purification tool, its primary application being in pharmaceutical drug discovery R & D. When a new drug candidate molecule is synthesised, the compound must be purified or ‘cleaned up’ prior to further evaluation. The crude reaction mixture is passed through a flash chromatography column with the pure drug compound being isolated by selective elution.