Chromatographs as Epistemic Things: Communities around the Extraction of Material Knowledge

Automated chromatography – gas chromatography and later high performance liquid chromatography – played an important role in the transformation of chemical analysis during the 1960s and 1970s. This chapter presents the historical narrative of the production and dissemination of chromatographic technology, and discusses the effects of the automation of separation at the social and epistemic levels. Emphasis is given to materiality, not only of chromatographic technological knowledge, but also of the knowledge produced by application of this technology in research.