Ch ChemAI

All experiments › Classifying materials

Paper chromatography of inks

Separate inks into their dyes and find which dyes are in the unknown ink X.

🧪 Start the experiment — free

Runs in the browser on phones, tablets and computers. No sign-up needed. For teachers: assign any experiment to a class, see results and calculations.

What you do

1. Add about 10 mL of water (the solvent). Its level must stay below the pencil start line.
2. Wait (speed ×5) until the solvent front is near the top.
3. Use the ruler: Rf = distance of the spot ÷ distance of the solvent. Which inks have the same dyes as X?
4. Measure the Rf of the red dye (2 decimals).

More experiments on this topic