Terreros, Eduardo N.; Dr. Roberts, Andrew G. (University of Utah)
Faculty Advisor: Roberts, Andrew G. (University of Utah, Chemistry)
Chromatography is an indispensable tool in most chemistry laboratories, as it provides a way to separate multiple components within a chemical mixture. The separation can be evaluated by the use of various chromatographic methodologies that have been developed to target specific chemical properties (e.g. size, mass, molecular interactions) of the desired compounds. Chromatographic methods are utilized to gather qualitative information in order to observe more general trends, or quantitative data to further explore observations in greater detail.
Thin Layer Chromatography (TLC) is a well-established method for collecting qualitative data from chemical reactions. Although Quantitative TLC (QTLC) methods have been developed, they are limited due to their high complexity, and cost prohibitive nature. The advancement of a Semi-Quantitative Thin Layer Chromatography (S-QTLC) method will provide a quick, low cost method to track organic reactions. We developed a low-cost alternative that uses readily available materials to gather images of TLC plates and process them into semi-quantitative data. In order to achieve this, we have constructed a small image gathering box made of opaque acrylic fitted with two 254 nm UV lamps and a Raspberry Pi Zero W with a camera module to acquire the images. The images are imported to a PC and processed by a custom built MatLab function. We demonstrated that this system can be utilized to gather qualitative data. Current studies will validate semi-quantitative data collection and reaction tracking and work is currently being done to validate semi-quantitative data collection.