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Chemistry Forums for Students => Organic Chemistry Forum => Topic started by: CopperSmurf on November 11, 2008, 06:12:34 PM

Title: Detecting Fluorene and fluorone on TLC plates
Post by: CopperSmurf on November 11, 2008, 06:12:34 PM

What eluent should I use to run the TLC plates and should I use hexane as a solvent to dissolve fluorene and fluorone for spotting on TLC plates?

fluorene is really non-polar and fluorone is ever so slightly polar. So maybe a mixture eluent of an ether and something non-polar? Or what about dichloromethane? Has anyone tried doing this successfully?

Title: Re: Detecting Fluorene and fluorone on TLC plates
Post by: phil81 on November 13, 2008, 09:20:40 AM

First: Are you sure you mean fluorone and not fluorenone (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluorone, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluorenone)?

As to which eluent works best, only an experiment can give you the answer. Just try it ;) Hexane with maybe a few percent of AcOEt sounds like a good start. As a solvent for dissolving the fluorene/fluorone, you can basically take anything if you can let it evaporate before starting the TLC. So dichloromethane is fine if you heat the plate a little after "spotting" the material.

For detailed instructions, see http://chem.chem.rochester.edu/~nvd/tlchowto.html (an excellent website anyway).