During this experiment, Miss Leong teached us the basics of chromatography, and how to carry out chromatography.
Chromatography is a simple process, to separate substances in a solution. It is a effective way to find out if a certain, or unique substance is present in a solution as all substances will be separated. Different substance have different colours. For example, a blue ink may consists of blue and black ink. Some solution, or dyes have only one coulour, this means that the solution is pure.
There are several ways of conducting chromatography tests, but a simpler method would be to use a chromatography paper paper with two drops of ink soak it in a ethanol and water mixture. The inks must be placed above a line drawn by a pencil with the mixture directly below it. This is to ensure the the inks do not dissolve into the mixture beforehand. Also the line must be drawn in pencil as ink will dissolve in the mixture and disrupt the results. Thus, as the filter paper absorbs the mixture, substances in the ink get separated from each other, as different substances have different rates of dissolving, also due to the solvent used.
Generally I like chromatography as it is a very interesting process to me. For instance, invisible ink spots in the chromatography paper can be .made visible via iodine. I find that this is really amazing as you can find out any substance in a solution by using chromatography, that is how authorities find out if some people misused drugs, by taking their urine sample. The experiment was memorable for me as i forget that lead cannot be dissolved in a solvent, as I used my highlighter which is uses lead. Consequently, the lead did not dissolve in the ethnol solution...
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