In contrast to elution chromatography, solutes separated in displacement mode form sharp-edged zones rather than spreading peaks. Zone boundaries in displacement chromatography are self-sharpening: if a molecule for some reason gets ahead of its band, it enters a zone in which it is more strongly retained, and will then run more slowly until its zone catches up.  Furthermore, because displacement chromatography takes advantage of the non-linearity of the isotherms, loadings are deliberately high; more material can be separated on a given column, in a given time, with the purified components recovered at significantly higher concentrations. Retention conditions can still be adjusted, but the displacer controls the migration rate of the solutes.  The displacer is selected to have higher affinity for the stationary phase than does any of the solutes being separated, and its concentration is set to approach saturation of the stationary phase and to give the desired migration rate of the concentration wave.  High-retention conditions can be employed without gradient operation, because the displacer ensures removal of all solutes of interest in the designed run time.
Because of the concentrating effect of loading the column under high-retention conditions, displacement chromatography is well suited to purify components from dilute feed streams.  However, it is also possible to concentrate material from a dilute stream at the head of a chromatographic column and then switch conditions to elute the adsorbed material in conventional isocratic or gradient modes. Therefore, this approach is not unique to displacement chromatography, although the higher loading capacity and less dilution allow greater concentration in displacement mode.
A disadvantage of displacement chromatography is that non-idealities always give rise to an overlap zone between each pair of components; this mixed zone must be collected separately for recycle or discard to preserve the purity of the separated materials. The strategy of adding spacer molecules to form zones between the components (sometimes termed "carrier displacement chromatography") has been investigated and can be useful when suitable, readily removable spacers are found.  Another disadvantage is that the raw chromatogram, for instance a plot of absorbance or refractive index vs elution volume, can be difficult to interpret for contiguous zones, especially if the displacement train is not fully developed.  Documentation and troubleshooting may require additional chemical analysis to establish the distribution of a given component. Another disadvantage is that the time required for regeneration limits throughput.
According to John C. Fords article in the Encyclopedia of Chromatography', theoretical studies indicate that at least for some systems, optimized overloaded elution chromatography offers higher throughput than displacement chromatography, though limited experimental tests suggest that displacement chromatography is superior (at least before consideration of regeneration time).