We are determining what solvent is most polar with the overhead pens
• What solvent is more polar or adhesive?
• What colors are pure substances or mixtures?
• What solvent reacts best to separate the colors?

We know that chromatography paper is used to separate the components of a liquid so that it can be identified. The dissolved colors move up the paper according to how well they attract to it or how adhesive the liquid is.


We hypothesized that H20 would be the most adhesive liquid because we weren’t sure what the other liquids were and we knew H20 was a polar fluid.

Materials we used in our lab:
• 9 strips of chromatography paper.
• Overhead pens: Red, Purple, Blue, Yellow, Orange, Green.
• Solvents H2O, CH3OH, C3H7OH, and C6H14
• 24 Well plate.
• Paper Towels
• Apron
• Goggles
• Notebooks

We used chemicals that could be hazardous to our skin and eyes. So we wore aprons and goggles. We also had fume hood vent so that we did not breath in the fumes the solvents let off.


Our Procedure started putting our safety equipment on such as our aprons and goggles. Then we cut 4 pieces of chromatography paper in the same lengths. We then made creases ¼ of the way up the paper and dabbed the black over head pen 4 times across the crease. We then filled our 24 well plate with the four solvents. We dipped the strips into the solvents making sure not to put the dot into the solvent but enough to let it wick up the paper. We waited 30 minutes and then recorded our results in our notebooks. H2O carried the ink farthest. So we agreed to use this for the next part of the lab. Repeat steps leading up to creasing the papers. This time you dot the separate papers with Red, purple, blue, green, orange, and yellow ink. We then filled the 24 well plate with H2O. We dipped the papers into the solvent and waited 30 minutes. Then we recorded our results in our notebooks. (See Results)




Results/Data:

Our hypothesis proved to be correct that H2O was the best solvent because it had the greatest polarity.
• Results: Water worked the best as the solvent then CH3OH came in second, then C3H7OH, and C6H14 was the worst solvent. The yellow color we used is a pure substance and the green, blue, red, and orange were mixtures.
• We learned that chromatography paper could separate components so they can be identified.
• Possible errors could be our chromatography paper being dipped to far into the solvent.