The weight of flash chromatography: A tool to predict its mass intensity from thin-layer chromatography

Purification by flash chromatography strongly impacts the greenness of a process. Unfortunately, due to the lack of the relevant literature data, very often this impact cannot be assessed thus preventing the comparison of the environmental factors affecting the syntheses. We developed a simple mathematical approach to evaluate the minimum mass intensity of flash chromatography from the retention factor values determined by thin-layer chromatography.