MSc FOOD BUSINESS MANAGEMENT AND TECHNOLOGY Food Formulation & Processing Laboratory Practical Submitted to, Submitted by, Janis Kelly Blesson Abraham Mathew PRACTICAL NO- 3 SEPARATION OF AMINO ACIDS BY THIN LAYER CHROMATOGRAPHY Chromatography Chromatography is a technique that is used to separate two or more different …show more content…
(b) attractions between the compound and the silica, the more the compound interacts with silica, the lesser it moves, (c) size of the compound, the larger the compound the slower it moves up the plate. As the solvent slowly travels up the plate, the different components of the dye mixture travel at different rates and the mixture is separated into different coloured spots (in case of using a coloured mixture). This leads to the development of TLC plate. The plate is removed after an optimal development time and dried and the spots/zones are detected using a suitable location reagent (in case of separation of colourless compounds, Ninhydrin is used in this case which helps in developing colour). An important characteristic used in thin layer chromatography is Rf value. Fig .1: Technique for TLC chromatography Chromatographic Separation of Amino acids The experiment aims to bring about separation of a mixture of amino acids using the technique of thin layer chromatography to separate the amino acids in a given mixture. There are 20 standard amino acids which are a-amino acids. They are made up of two groups and