AbstractGel chromatography can be considered as a network‐limited partition. This leads to the conclusion that it is impossible to find a generalizing relationship between the molecular weight and the elution volume using parameters depending only on the solute.The preparation of gels with different chemical structure is discussed and possible methods for the alteration of pore size are described. Investigations of the influence of the physical and chemical structure on separation and separation efficiency have shown that the elution volume depends to some extent on the chemical nature, but the separation efficiency is mainly a function of the physical structur