Big Manny GCSE Science Experiment: Chromatography

Chromatography is a technique that is used to separate different substances within a mixture. Watch Big Manny’s experiment as he shows chromatography using paper, ink and water.

What is chromatography?

Chromatography is a technique that is used to separate different substances within a mixture. An example of a mixture of different substances is food colouring or ink.

Chromatography experiment with ink

Food colouring and ink are made from multiple pigments of different colours, and we can separate these pigments by using water.

First, we prepare the chromatography paper so that we can separate the ink into its different pigments.

Then, draw a line in pencil towards the bottom of the chromatography paper.

Next, put some different coloured ink along the pencil line. I’m going to start with some red ink. I’m going to draw a circle along the pencil. Then I’m going to use some green, then some blue ink. And lastly I’m going to use some pink.

For the next step, we put straw through the top of the chromatography paper, and then we put the chromatography paper into the beaker.

Now, add the solvent to the beaker. In this case the solvent is water.

When I take out the chromatography paper we can see that the different pigments within the ink have been separated and have travelled different distances along the paper.

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