Can I get 200+ data points with this project?

[iabas]

I'm thinking about using the paper chromatography idea on this site.

https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... p009.shtml

Is it possible for me to get 200 data points with this project? I need at least that much data.

[deleted-71417]

Hi,

You might be able to separate 200 discrete spots, but it will be difficult. I think most people try for separating up to about 10 components You will have to choose your chromatography paper very carefully, and develop your initial spotting technique extremely well, so you can get a very small spot that does not spread out. One way of extending the resolution of the technique is to do two dimensional paper chromatography:

http://www.nslc.wustl.edu/sicklecell/part2/chroma.html

If you use large sheets of high quality paper, very careful spotting of your sample, get a good separation of the sample with one solvent, very carefully dry the paper, rotate the paper 90 degrees, then carefully rechromatograph with a very different solvent, it is possible to get spots spread over the whole of the paper. Making this work well takes a lot of experimenting and thinking. Some people also use a variation of this technique, where paper chromatography is done in one direction, then electrophoresis is done in the other.

Chemists who set out to separate hundreds of components in one sample often use techniques like capillary gas chromatography or capillary liquid chromatography, or separate their sample into fractions of smaller numbers of compounds.

This sounds like a very challenging project. Good luck with it!

Barrett Tomlinson

[iabas]

Thanks Barrett. I'm not sure if I will do that though. I'm still looking at a couple other projects before I get a set idea of what to do.

https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... M&from=TSW

Would it be possible to get the required amount of data with that project?

Also, is there any other projects that can merit that much data? I'm mainly looking in chemistry, electronics, and biotechnology with a six or seven difficulty rating (based on the scale used on the site).

[deleted-71417]

Hi,

I must apologise, as I do not think I understand your original question and second post correctly. What exactly do you mean when you are asking if you can get at least 200 data points, and why exactly is that important?

I interpreted your question in the original post to be asking whether you could separate a mixture of 200 compounds on a single paper chromatogram. That question sometimes comes up in molecular biology when someone digests a protein with an enzyme (such as trypsin) and then wants to characterize all the peptide fragments that result. Biochemists then sometimes do what is called a “protein map”, a two dimensional paper chromatogram/electrophorogram done under carefully controlled conditions to produce an index of all the locations of protein spots on the 2 dimensional plot. If two of these maps come out the same, then you have rather persuasive evidence that the two protein samples you digested are either identical, or close to identical. For an example of this type of analysis, see p146 of this paper:
http://vir.sgmjournals.org/cgi/reprint/43/1/143.pdf

If this was not what you meant, and your second post strongly implies it is not, please make clear what you are asking about, I.e. exactly what do you mean by a data point? Why do you need at least 200 hundred of them? Are you needing to separate a mixture of 200 compounds, or making a plot of 200 measured points?

Best Regards,


Barrett Tomlinson