Lab Experiment: The Thin Layer Chromatography

709 Words2 Pages

The Thin layer chromatography is one of the oldest techniques which is used to identify what is present in an unknown mixture. It is a very useful technique for research,forensics,environmental testing, and many more fields because it is simple and inexpensive way to analyze small samples. In this experiment two compounds (solid) were used ferrocene and acetylferrocene. In the first step 50 ml of 2:8 diethyl ether/petroleum ether was placed in an erlenmeyer flask covered with a parafilm paper to avoid evaporation. Then the glass column was prepared placing a small cotton on the bottom of the glass column and then added a small amount of sand , wich will give the stationary phase an even base and prevent concentration and streaking of the bands …show more content…

Later we weighed 0.150g of 1:1 ferrocene and acetylferrocene(orange) mixture and we added silica, we mixed it together. This mixture was placed into the column adding solvent not letting it get dry. Immediately we noticed the yellow color traveling down the slurry. When it was close enough to the bottom of the column, it was drained into beaker #1. Then the white part was transfer to beaker #2, which was our trash beaker, this step is necessary to make that part of the orange does not contaminates the yellow part to prevent impurities. At this point 2:8 solvent was over, therefore we used 1:1 solvent which has a higher polarity. Then we drained the orange part to beker …show more content…

To prepared the silica gel plate we used the sample drained from beaker 1, beaker 2, and a mixture of ferrocene and acetylferrocene provided to us in the lab. The solvent traveled 5.6 cm and the mixture given of acetyl ferrocene and ferrocene gave us two dots, one yellow which travelled 4.3 cm, with an Rf value of 0.767. The other spot (orange) travelled 2.3 cm with an Rf value of 0.410 cm. Then beaker # 1 (yellow spot) which was ferrocene travelled 4.5 cm, and the Rf is 0.803 . Beaker #3 (orange spot) which was acetylferrocene travelled 2.5 cm and the Rf value is 0.446.The two beakers with the rest of the sample was left on the storage and one week later we weighed the amount recovered. For ferrocene we recovered 0.069g which represented 46% of the initial amount we used (0.150g),we confirmed that the compound we were using was pure obtaining a sharp mp of 175.8-177.1 on the first try and then

More about Lab Experiment: The Thin Layer Chromatography

Open Document