By Anonymous on Wednesday, February 23, 2000 - 07:22 pm:
My daughter wants to separate the pigments from ink and gel pens. She wants to do this for her science project at school. We have tried a chromatography solvent of pet ether and acetone. The only pen colors that will separate are the purple and the red. Do you have any suggestions on a solvent that will separate all of these types of pen?
By Anonymous on Thursday, February 24, 2000 - 05:42 am:
You did not mentioned which type of chromatographic separation you tried (column, TLC, paper). For the separation of the ink of "permanent" markers paper chromatography can be used. In our undergraduate chemistry course students use Whatman No. 1 type paper and different toluene-methanol mixtures (10:1 to 50:1) as solvents. Depending on the brand of the pen nice separations can be achieved.
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