It is often difficult for a new technology to compete in the same sector as a well established one, even if it has major advantages over the prevalent technology. Consider for a moment: the microwave oven. This staple of modern life started as a crude, expensive, and demanding cooking device. Initially only those that truly understood the advantages of the technology, and how to best apply those advantages to their cooking could benefit from it. And because the microwave was so fundamentally different from other cooking technologies, there was a learning steep learning curve that added to its expense.

The market for chemical separation instrumentation is in a similar position with the introduction of CCC. Conventional solid-phase techniques have the advantage of time and many educated users — CCC lacks this.  But, unlike the microwave which mainly just shortend cooking times, CCC is able to achieve things that are extremely difficult and often impossible with other methods.