Paper chromatography of inks template

A strip of chromatography paper hung from a rod across a beaker, its pencil baseline of ink spots above a shallow layer of solvent. GCSE / high school (CBSE, NGSS, IB).

What the template shows

• Separate the dyes in inks or food colourings and identify them by Rf value
• Rod across the beaker
• Paper folded over it or held with a clip, hanging straight and not touching the glass
• Rf = distance moved by the spot ÷ distance moved by the solvent, both from the baseline; always less than 1
• Pencil baseline
• About 1.5 cm from the bottom, with small, concentrated spots of each ink. Pencil does not dissolve in the solvent
• Solvent front
• Take the paper out before the solvent reaches the top and mark the front in pencil at once
• Separated dyes
• A pure dye gives one spot; a mixture gives several. Compare with spots of known dyes run on the same paper
• Water (or ethanol for permanent inks), below the baseline so the spots do not dissolve into it. Cover the beaker to keep the air saturated
• Reaction setup

Drawn with 11 shapes – every one editable in MolDraw.

Sources

• Furniss et al., Vogel's Textbook of Practical Organic Chemistry, 5th ed., Longman 1989 Textbook
• Zubrick, The Organic Chem Lab Survival Manual, 10th ed., Wiley 2016 Textbook