A chromatographic technique that separates molecules based on their size by passing them through a column filled with porous beads. Larger molecules cannot enter the pores and elute first, while smaller molecules enter the pores and elute later.
From Greek 'chroma' (color) and 'graphein' (to write), originally developed for colored compounds. The 'exclusion' principle was discovered in the 1950s when scientists noticed that large molecules moved faster through certain gel matrices than expected.
It's like a molecular traffic jam where the biggest molecules get to use the express lane! The counterintuitive result is that in this technique, being bigger actually makes you faster, unlike most other separation methods.
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