Nobel prize medal of partition chromatography’s co-inventor to be auctioned

The Nobel prize medal awarded to British chemist Archer Martin in 1952, alongside Richard Synge for the invention of partition chromatography will be sold by his family via the London-based auctioneer Noonans on 2 February 2023. It is anticipated that the medal will bring in between £100,000 and £150,000.

Martin’s road to the development of partition chromatography began during the second world war. As he suffered with stomach ulcers he was allowed extra milk as it was thought to act as an anti-inflammatory agent. However, when this remedy later became ineffective he discovered that pasteurisation techniques had changed, leading him to work with unpasteurised milk. Martin then separated the constituents in milk using chromatography techniques he developed and identified the active ingredient in whey, which he then concentrated. He convinced various companies to test the extract which was found to calm inflammation. Martin and Synge went on to develop this technique for gas mixtures, as a means to determine their composition.