Thin-layer chromatographic method for separation of wheatgrass pigments on sucrose impregnated silica gel plates

Abstract

One of the most important aspects of the selected analytical method is avoiding the degradation of the target compounds during the analysis of the samples. Chromatographic techniques, particularly thin-layer chromatography (TLC), are widespread in this field. However, difficulties arise in applying chromatographic methods, such as separation efficiency, and stability of target compounds. The application of silica gel as stationary phase might be an appropriate choice [2], but at the same time, the degradation of the pigment compounds is fast, so the analysis has to be done relatively quickly [3]. In order to avoid degradation, a column filled with sucrose was used as adsorbent for isolation of chlorophylls [4, 5] and home-made thin-layer plates for analysis [6–8]. However, the resolution was rather limited. The aim of this investigation was to find a rapid and simple analytical method for the separation of the pigments originated from commercial wheat grass extracts without any degradation product generated during the analysis of the samples. The sucrose immersed silica gel system fulfilled all of these requirements. 2 Experimental