Wednesday, 16 March 2011

Sorry, you have to read it from bottom to up :/

THANK YOU! :D

The Importance of Paper Chromatography

Without paper chromatography, separating components in a sample will be difficult. It will be hard to identify the exact number of components in a sample as well. Also, with chromatography, you can determine if a sample is pure.

As you can see from the video before this...

Paper chromatography can be used to solve crimes in real life. This application is of great use especially when a pen is used to write on paper and the paper is evidence in the crime scene. The forensic analysts can then compare the patterns different pens have and match the pen to track the criminal.

Chromatography To Solve Crimes

PROCEDURE and PRECAUTIONS

  1. Use a pencil to draw a thin line near the bottom of the paper. Make sure it is not too near the bottom.
  2. Mark a cross for each mixture on the line.
  3. Mark a spot of color/dye/mixture on each respective crosses and allow to dry.
  4. Put chromatography paper in solvent. Ensure top of solvent does not cover the mixture.
  5. Observe as spots move up the chromatography paper.


Use a pencil to draw the thin line as a pen may have ink that is soluble in the solvent. The ink may move up the chromatography paper and ruin the experiment.
Allow the color/dye/mixture to dry first before putting the chromatography paper in the solvent. This is to ensure that the ink will not totally dissolve in the solvent while it is still wet.
You must make sure that the solvent does not cover the mixture as the mixtures may dissolve totally in the solvent,

I Will Be Focusing On Paper Chromatography

About Paper Chromatography:

The ink has to be soluble in the solvent, water or ethanol, so that it can move up the chromatography paper.

The colors in a dye (only if it has more than 1 component) separate because different colors vary in their solubility.

 Some dye spots travel further up because they are more soluble in the solvent.

You will obtain a partially or fully solvent-absorbed chromatography paper after conducting the experiment. You will observe that if you had used a few different inks, some may have more than 1 components in them, and you can identify them by the number of spots that have moved up the paper.

There Are Two Types of Chromatography

Radial Chromatography
Radial Chromatography




















Paper Chromatography
Paper Chromatography

What is chromatography used for?

  • To separate dyes in ink
  • Identify pigments in plants
  • Extract amino acids from proteins
  • Identify poisons/pesticides/drugs
  • Detect traces of banned substances





What is chromatography?

Basically, chromatography is the separation technique of using a solvent to separate a mixture into its components

It is mostly applied to identifying mixtures that are colored.