Observed Plate Height in TLC

Abstract

The flow mechanism in thin-layer plates has been established as the same capillary mechanism observed in paper chromatography. A pore-size distribution of the thin-layer plate maximizes at 1 × 10⁻³ cm radius. The molecular-diffusion and stationary-phase mass-transfer parameters of the plate-height expression have been determined for the system Sudan Orange-Silica Gel G-chloroform to be B = 6.0 ± 0.4 × 10⁻⁶ cm²/sec and C_s = 0.12 ± 0.04 sec, respectively. Estimates of the eddy-diffusion and mobile-phase mass-transfer parameters are presented.