One of the most compelling reasons for adopting CCC is it’s ability to achieve gentle, lossless separations - where conventional techniques fail. The examples are endless, but I found this one to be a particularly interesting application to marine research (preparative isolation of tunichrome B-1 pigment from sea squirts).

I was initially exposed to this work via this blog entry. But I strongly urge those interested to obtain the original article (which can be found here) - an interesting read. The problem and solution is summed up quite simply in this quote from Nakanishi et al. (1986):

The tunichromes readily decompose on hplc and hence could not be separated on a scale larger than analytical. Luckily, a prototype CCCC instrument became available in our laboratory, and it was only through this chromatographic method that further semiprep scale purification of tunichromes was achieved.

Nakanishi was lucky enough to have access to an early prototype instrument to complete his work. I should note that more than twenty years later, current instrumentation and knowledge would yield much faster runs with much greater ease.