Improvements in or relating to materials

摘要

The invention relates to materials suitable for use as support materials for selected substances (e.g. chromatographic organic gels) and the preparation thereof. The materials are in the form of porous particles of inorganic, magnetic material. The particles may have an inter-connected internal porosity throughout within which a selected substance may be retained or may be hollow such that a selected substance may be retained within a porous shell. By way of example, hollow particles in accordance with the invention may retain an affinity chromatography gel and thereby form composite particles. Such composite particles may be used to extract a selected component from a fluid by affinity chromatography and the composite particles then removed from the fluid by magnetic separation.