Apparatus and method for preparative supercritical fluid chromatography

A substantial need exists for industries to recover purified components of interest from samples containing simple or complex mixtures of components. Many technologies have been developed to meet this need. For dissolvable, nonvolatile components, the technology of choice has been liquid elution chromatography. A fractionated sample collection process and device having at least one pressurized chamber used to gather and store liquid samples generated from a flow stream containing a mixture of highly compressed gas, compressible liquid, or supercritical fluid and a relatively incompressible liquid. A bank of multiple collection chambers is secured together in a frame to form a cassette unit. Each collection chamber may house a replaceable liner such as a test tube vial, to hold a fractionated liquid phase sample. After filling with sample, a collection chamber is returned to a clean state and ready for refilling with a new sample by manually or automatically replacing the liner.