Monday, November 11, 2013

Separating Inks

This week we separated yet another mixture - in this case, the ink you find in a typical water-based marker. To do this we used a technique called chromatography. Using the marker we wanted to investigate, we drew a line on a piece of filter paper. Then we dipped one end into a bowl of water. As the water traveled up the paper, it dissolved some of the dyes in the ink. Because each dye has different properties, they travel through the paper differently, and as a result separate into bands of different colors.

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