Patent ID: 7790037

Claim:
A method of separating compounds, comprising: a. tagging at least a first organic compound with a first tagging moiety to result in a first tagged compound; b. tagging at least a second organic compound, different from the first organic compound, with a second tagging moiety different from the first tagging moiety to result in a second tagged compound, the first tagging moiety and the second tagging moiety including at least one of a common polar alkylene glycol repeat unit, but having a different number of the alkylene glycol repeat units therein, the greater the number of alkylene glycol repeat units, the greater the polarity of the tagging moiety, wherein the first tagging moiety and the second tagging moiety comprise between 1 and 20 alkylene glycol repeat units; and physically separating the first tagged compound from a mixture including at least the second tagged compound using a chromatographic separation technique dependent upon the number of alkylene glycol repeat units and thereby polarity.