Chromatography Lab Report Essay

The purpose of this lab was to understand that because substances have different properties, such as mass, that can be separated by chromatography. In our experiment, we chose 4 different color source to separate in water. We made sure that all the sources were water soluble because only polar substances will dissolve in water. We chose a black wet-erase marker, a red marker, a green marker, and mixed food coloring to test. The chromatography paper was split into 4 sections, about 2 cm above the bottom edge and evenly spaced out. Each section was indicated by a small pencil mark. Graphite was used as the indication spot because it is non-polar so it will not dissolve in water. We then drew/drop a small dot of each source on the pencil markings
The paper was allowed to sit in the water for 10 minutes so the solute could separate. At the end of the 10 minutes, the length traveled by each component of each solute was measured to determine its retention factor. In the black wet erase marker, the solvent total distance was 8.0 cm, the yellow-2.0 cm, red-5.25 cm, purple-6.5 cm, and blue was 7.8 cm. This means that yellow had a retention factor of 0.25, red- 0.66, purple-0.81, and blue-0.98. In this substance, the yellow dye had the most mass while the blue had the least. Smaller components are able to move more efficiently through the small pathways in the paper compared to bigger ones. In the other sources such as the red marker, the red dye had a Rf of 0.63 while in the green marker, the yellow dye´s Rf was 0.76 and the green was 0.89. In the last source, mixed food coloring, the red had a Rf of 0.79, orange- 0.89, yellow-0.98, and blue was 1.0. These numbers were not the most accurate because the solvent went to the top of the chromatography paper. The components might not have been able to travel its full potential, this was most evident in the mixed food coloring