Question

Consider a mixture of benzene (bp 80) and acetone (bp 56). (a) which compound will emerge first on a non-polar column? on a polar column? (b) which type of column (polar or nonpolar) would gie a better separation or resolution of benzene-acetone mixture? Now cosider a mixture of aetone and butanone (bp 79.5) and compare with the benzene-acetone. (c) will the resolution of the acetone-butanone mixture be better or worse than for the acetone-benzene mixture ont he non-polar column? (d) will the resolution of acetone-butanone mixture be better or worse thant he acetone-benzene mixture on the polar column?

Answer 1

what you need to understand first is that in a non polar column first nonpolar components will come followed by polar ones. But it is exactly opposite in case of polar column where first polar components will come followed by non polar ones, which is also known as reversed phase column.

Greater the difference between the polarity of two components better will be the resolution. Or in other words better the seperation between the components on "Thin Layer Chromatography" easier will be the resolution.