Essay On Chromatography

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what is chromatography? Chromatography, invented by Russian botanist M.S. Tswett in 1903, comes from the Greek word khroma meaning colour. It is a separation technique in which different pigments of an organic or inorganic substance may be isolated and viewed independently on the chromatogram by passing a sample through a medium in which the constituent parts move at different rates. It can be defined as “Chromatography is usually introduced as a technique for separating and/or identifying the components in a mixture. The basic principle is that components in a mixture have different tendencies to adsorb onto a surface or dissolve in a solvent.” Royal Society of Chemistry. (http://media.rsc.org/Modern%20chemical%20techniques/MCT5%20Chromatography.pdf) There are multiple different types of chromatography that can be used for different things based on their suitability: - High performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) - Planar chromatography (paper and thin layer chromatography) - Gas…show more content…
It is known for having the stationary phase in a plane rather than a column. The two main examples of planar chromatography are thin layer chromatography (TLC) and paper chromatography. These use very similar methods however have different stationary phases to do so. For example, in paper chromatography you place a small, concentrated sample onto chromatography paper. The chromatography paper is made of cellulose, which is a polar substance, meaning that it will react at different rates based on the polarity of the substance. The paper is placed into a saturated environment with a small amount of solvent to act as the mobile phase. And in thin layer chromatography a tlc plate is used, these are a flat surface often glass coated in a layer of cellulose or silica gel, to act as an adsorbent. This method is more commonly used in the laboratory as it as it yields more reliable results and has more variety in the way of

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