#9 Entry- EXPERIMENTS!

Today we did 2 experiments. One on Chromatography and simple distillation.

Since it was a very simple process, Mr Foo did not show us a sample set-up.

Steps:
1. Take a strip of chromatography paper and use a ruler to draw a line about 1.5cm away from the end of.
2. Dip the capillary tube into green ink, and blot a little in the middle of the drawn line.
3. Repeat this process till you get a concentrated spot of food coloring.
4. Add distilled water into the test tube till you cover the circumference of the bottom of the tube.
5. Slowly insert the chromatography paper into the test tube, making sure that the paper does not touch the line.
6. Use a clothes peg to secure the paper. Meanwhile, wait for the distilled water to rise.
7. Measure the distance where the distilled water stopped. Draw a line. This line is called the solvent front, and is the maximum amount.
8. Rf= Distance travelled by spot / Distance travelled by solvent

Component	Distance moved by spot/cm	Distance moved by solvent/cm	Rf
Yellow	6	11.6	0.517
Blue	10	11.6	o.862

Simple Distillation:
Mr Foo demonstrated the simple distillation method with coke. It was really smelly!

Anyway, I learnt that simple distillation and fractional distillation are similar in some ways. Both of them have boiling, condensation and require heat energy. They are different in the sense that simple distillation does not require fractionating while fractional distillation has fractionating column.

They are used to separate solvent from a solution and the fractional distillation is to separate 2 miscible liquid.

Reflection: I learnt many new things today, and learnt way we have to study about this topic. It is essential to scientists, food manufacturers etc to determine the purity of a substance using chromatography, and also using simple distillation to obtain pure water.

Thats all for today!