in 1966 Field-Flow Fractionation was invented by Prof. Calvin Giddings at University of Utah, Salt Lake City, USA. He was a highly respected scientist and outstanding personality who published a over 300 scientific articles and several books in the area of Field-Flow Fractionation (FFF) and in general separation science as well. Later Prof. Giddings was also twice nominated for the Nobel Prize in 1984 and in 1994 showing the outstanding level and impact of his unique esearch activities.

In order to systematically study the Field-Flow Fractionation effect, he founded the FFFresearch Center at the University of Utah in 1972 which acted as a source for hundreds of FFF papers and where Giddings and his co-workers step by step developed the complete theory of Field-Flow Fractionation and all sub-techniques. In this FFFresearch Center Prof. Giddings and Dr. Marcus Myers designed and engineered the first real FFF prototypes which later have been used as templates for the commercial product development.

Prof. Giddings did not only invent FFF, but also he and his co-workers founded the world`s first FFF company named FFFractionation, Inc. in Salt Lake City in the year 1986. FFFractionation, Inc. was the first company in the area of Field-Flow Fractionation, introducing the first commercial Field-Flow Fractionation instruments world-wide and became therefore has been known as the "Inventors of commercial FFF". These efforts have been underlined and honored in the following years by several R&D 100 Awards for some of these FFF products.

In the 1990s the product portfolio of FFFractionation comprised Thermal Field-Flow Fractionation (Model T100), Sedimentation Field-Flow Fractionation (Model S101), Symmetric Flow Field-Flow Fractionation (Model F1000) and Split FFF (Model SF1000 SPLITT). FFFractionation also was the first company world-wide to couple FFF with Multi-Angle Light Scattering (MALS) providing a unique set of high-resolution characterization systems for determination of absolute molar mass and particle size of proteins, bio/polymers and particles.

In 1995 the first commercial Asymmetrical Flow FFF (AF4) was developed by Dr. Thorsten Klein at Technical University of Munich, Germany. This system brought a new level of automation and separation performance to the market. Following this innovation and in order to accelerate a focused commercialization of AF4, he founded Postnova Analytics in Munich, Germany in 1997. With its first HRFFFF 10.000 series AF4, Postnova clearly had a mayor impact on the FFF market and became the leading innovator in the FFF arena.

Until that time FFFractionation has been the prime innovator in Field-Flow Fractionation, introducing many bench-marking innovations and patents in Field-Flow Fractionation. Also FFFractionation has been the main promoter for the commercialization of the Field-Flow Fractionation technology.

In 2001 Postnova Analytics acquired FFFractionation, forming Postnova Analytics USA then. The new company became the sole provider of all variants of Field-Flow Fractionation - Light Scattering systems, forming the world-leading company in the area of Field-Flow Fractionation.

Following the acquistion, Postnova moved into new company headquarters in Landsberg am Lech, which is located in the Greater Munich area, Germany in the year 2003.

Postnova - Model PN3310 - Viscometer Detector - Brochure