If there is one technique or experiment that every chemist, or student learning chemistry should know, it is Thin Layer Chromatography (or TLC for short).
If you want to become a synthetic chemist, or you are planning to ace an experimental course on organic chemistry, TLC is something you really need to master.
So, what is this tutorial about? What am I going to learn if I continue reading?
Well, I am a synthetic organic chemist with years of experience in the lab, and I have run thousands of TLC and flash columns in any solvent combination that you can imagine. I also enjoy sharing and reading lab tricks with colleagues, or even online. You could say that there are very few things that I still don’t know about this technique.
What I decided to do, is to put together all my knowledge in this tutorial article, so you can start reading without knowing what a TLC is, and finish up by being able to separate and identify (almost) anything you want in an organic chemistry lab!
This guide is for many different levels.
I can tell you that even if you have never been in a chemistry lab before, you will be prepared to do a thin layer chromatography just by continuing to read the first sections.
On the other hand, I can also promise you that even if you have PhD in organic synthesis, there is still some tricks or hacks to learn in this guide.
Considering this, you can navigate this tutorial page by using the index shown right below. Happy TLCing everyone!
What is Thin Layer Chromatography?
You might be familiar with what chromatography is, but maybe you din’t know that, as a matter of fact, the name “chromatography” comes from some early experiments on thin layer chromatography.
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