Purpose:

How can you separate tiny amounts of a mixture?

Cautions:  None

Materials:

Transparent plastic soda bottle        scissors
Chromatographic paper                     test tube rack
2 small test tubes                                green felt tip marker


Procedure:

1. Make a line with green ink from a felt-tip pen about 2 cm from the bottom of a piece of filter paper.
   
2. Put about 5 cm of water in a soda bottle.
   
3. Hang the filter paper in the bottle with a stopper.  Be sure the line is above the water level.
   

4. When the color has risen up the paper to about 2 or 3 cm below the top, remove the paper and hang to dry.
   
   How many different substances can you identify?
   
   Can you put the substances back together again to make green ink?
   
5. Cut out each of the colored sections, and put each one in a separate test tube. 
   
6. Add between .5 cm³ water and 1 cm³ of water to the test tube.
   
   Do the colored substances dissolve?