October 12th Zach Jones, Group member Morgan Navarro Gonzales 1st period

Chromatography Lab Report

The purpose of the chromatography lab was to understand how ions move through a mobile phase, and how mixtures can be separated using the process of chromatography. After the ions were visibly separated, we could then calculate the Rf values of the different metals. Chromatography was a technique first used in 1906 by a Russian botanist named Twsett. Twsett used chromatography to separate the colored pigments in leaves, and when he saw the different bands of colors produced he named the process chromatography, meaning color graph. All chromatography utilizes a mobile phase and stationary phase. If the mixture being separated has a different affinity for the two phases, then the components of the mixture can be separated. In our lab we used paper chromatography, where paper is the stationary phase and a liquid solvent was the mobile phase. The mixture being separated is called the analyte. The analyte is placed onto a small spot on the paper, and then the paper is placed into a chamber that contains the liquid solvent. Capillary action draws the solvent up the paper, and when the solvent travels across the paper ions with a higher attraction to the stationary phase will stay behind, and have a lower Rf value, while ions with a lower attraction to the stationary phase will travel farther, and thus have a higher Rf value. In our lab we used filter paper as the stationary phase. A penciled dot in the middle of the paper was the location at which the analyte was dropped. Part of the paper was cut to let a strip hang down that would let the mobile phase travel up to the center dot. The analyte consisted of three different metals, Fe3+, Cu2+, and Ni2+. Each component was dropped onto the center dot, and then the paper was placed on top of a petri dish containing the mobile phase. This setup allowed the mobile phase to travel up to the analyte, and then out to the edges of the paper, carrying the different components with it. When the solvent had almost reached the edge of the paper, we removed the chromatogram and marked where the solvent had stopped. After exposing the chromatogram to ammonia vapors (which reacted with the iron and copper components) and dimethylglyoxime (which reacted with the nickel component) each of the three components was visible as a different color. The Iron was a rusty brown, the Copper was a bluish-green, and the Nickel was a bright pink. To calculate the Rf values of each component, the distance to the edge of the ring fronts is divided by the distance that the solvent travelled. For the known chromatograph the solvent travelled 46mm from the center. The iron travelled the furthest of the ions at 38mm, the copper travelled 22mm and the nickel travelled 18mm. In the unknown chromatograph, the experiment was performed exactly the same; the solvent travelled 53mm, the iron ion travelled 30mm, the copper travelled 23mm, and the nickel 18mm. Our Rf values were fairly constant between the two chromatographs, iron fluctuated the most, from 0.826 Rf to 0.566 Rf, however it remained the greatest Rf value in both data sets. From the data it can be inferred that the iron ions have the greatest affinity for the stationary phase. The Copper and Nickel ions were closer in Rf value than the iron component, with Rf values of 0.478 and 0.434, and 0.391 and 0.340 respectively. Copper had a lower affinity for the stationary phase than iron, and nickel had a slightly lower affinity than copper. The iron Rf value of 0.826 seems to be too high, I can come to this conclusion by looking at the two chromatographs that were recorded. In the unknown chromatograph, the three components form much more uniform rings of color, indicating to me that the unknown experiment was conducted with fewer errors. In the known experiment, there is a big blob of iron coloration that goes off to one side, which makes me think that perhaps the paper was tilted to one direction, or a valley formed in an area of the paper.