High‐performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) has been developed as a rapid and sensitive method for the separation and quantitative determination of a wide variety of compounds present in complex matrices in very low concentration. As gas–solid and gas–liquid chromatographic techniques are only suitable for the analysis of volatile and thermostable compounds with relatively low molecular mass, HPLC methods can also separate nonvolatile, thermolabile, and large molecules. The excellent separating power, high sensitivity, and considerable diversity of solutes that could be separated with HPLC contributed to its popularity.