Tuesday, July 21, 2015

Lab 2A: Chromatography


 
My favorite chromatogram

Lab Questions:

     1. The wick was used to slowly add water to the center of the filter paper and this lab only works when you can visually see the separation of pigment. If we soaked the filter paper itself in the cup of water, the separation of colors on the paper would be too quick and wouldn't be clear which defies the purpose of this experiment.

     2. Different types of ink with various amounts of pigments affects what colors appear on the paper. I also found that more ink on the paper changed the color to a more darker tone. The distance the ink is from the wick and the design drawn also affect the pattern of colors produced.

     3. Different components of the ink have various physical properties and these properties determine how adsorbent certain pigments are to the filter paper. Components in the mixture that are more adsorbed to the paper will move more slowly compared to components in the mixture that aren't as adsorbed to the paper. These not so strongly adsorbed components spend more time ion the solution and move up the paper quickly. The various properties and adsorbing of pigments results in different pigment bands.

     4. Blue appears in more than one type of ink and the same shade of blue always appears. This light blue color was found on the edges of multiple chromatograms which means the blue pigment was not strongly adsorbed by the filter paper. All the markers appeared to have this common blue pigment.

     5. Water is needed to separate pigments in water-soluble markers because the water allows the components in the ink to adsorb to the filter paper which creates the chromatograms. To separate pigments in other types of markers or pens, different solutions would be needed.



No comments:

Post a Comment