Fast protein liquid chromatography (FPLC) is a form of liquid chromatography that is often used to analyze or purify mixtures of proteins. As in other forms of chromatography, separation is possible because the different components of a mixture have different affinities for two materials, a moving fluid (the mobile phase) and a porous solid (the stationary phase). In FPLC the mobile phase is an aqueous buffer solution. The buffer flow rate is controlled by a positive-displacement pump and is normally kept constant, while the composition of the buffer can be varied by drawing fluids in different proportions from two or more external reservoirs. The stationary phase is a resin composed of beads, usually of cross-linked agarose, packed into a cylindrical glass or plastic column. FPLC resins are available in a wide range of bead sizes and surface ligands depending on the application.
FPLC was developed and marketed in Sweden by Pharmacia in 1982, and was originally called fast performance liquid chromatography to contrast it with high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). FPLC is generally applied only to proteins; however, because of the wide choice of resins and buffers it has broad applications. In contrast to HPLC, the buffer pressure used is relatively low, typically less than 5 bar, but the flow rate is relatively high, typically 1–5 ml/min. 
FPLC can be readily scaled from analysis of milligrams of mixtures in columns with a total volume of 5 ml or less to industrial production of kilograms of purified protein in columns with volumes of many liters. When used for analysis of mixtures, the eluant is usually collected in fractions of 1–5 ml which can be further analyzed. When used for protein purification there may be only two collection containers: one for the purified product and one for waste.