Chromatography
Of course, the last chem labs would have to be really difficult and annoying. Lab 10 was about chromatography and took forever! Basically they gave me a bunch of paper strips and I had to put a dot of some kind of dye or color on the bottom, then hang two strips at a time into a mason jar. The mason jar had to have an inch or so of either rubbing alcohol or salt solution in it so that the strips would just touch the liquid. The idea is that the liquid will soak upwards and spread the dye dot vertically. First, some of my strips stuck together so that the dyes rubbed off on each other. Then, I only found pens with non-soluble dyes so nothing was moving. Finally, it took hours for the liquid to move towards the top of the strips. I had to send off the stuff today because we’re leaving for Santa Barbara in the afternoon, we’ll see how it went.
