Question

1- Brief discussion of column chromatographic separation (solvent polarity, elution of compounds etc.)

2- Relationship between polarity and thin layer chromatography​.

Answer 1

Chromatography is a popular technique to purify a mixture of compounds to a pure single compound.

Column chromatography is one of the widely used methods to purify organic compounds in the laboratory.

In column chromatography, two types of phases will be there namely stationary phase and mobile phase.

A usual stationary phase used is silica gel and mobile phases used are the mixture of organic solvents with different polarities.

Polar compounds have more affinity with stationary phase (silica gel) and binds to silica gel, whereas non-polar compounds doesnot have any interactions with silica gel and a non-polar solvent is sufficient to elute the non-polar compounds from the column.

For polar compounds, more polar solvent is required to elute from the column.

2) Thin layer chromatography is a another chromatographic technique in which stationary phase is abosorbed on a surface as a thin layer. Here also polar compounds have more affinity towards the stationary phase whereas non-polar compounds has less interactions with the stationary phase. Hence in thin layer chromatography non-polar compounds elute high than the polar compounds.