Dear Chemists,
I have a Sediment which is the byproduct of an industrial process, It includes some 5 to 6 precursors like ethanol, water, .... (that every of then may have some impurities with it) and I want to characterize what are included or what new compounds were probably formed during the processing of the "Main Product" in this byproduct Sediment.
Should I Use TLC with different solvents having different polarities at first?
Please some one help me and introduce me a viable and handy approach?
Thanks in advance.
Dear Mr. Taghartapeh,
even if you address chemists I would not start with this approach but first and foremost try and get an overview of the "mineralogical" composition of this "sediment" (some may neither call it a sediment nor a mineralogical composition). It is obviously an antropogenic material piled up in a tailings pond or on a waste dump. You need to carry out technical mineralogy, involving microscopy, EMPA, SEM-EDX/WDX, XRD, subsequently followed by chemical investigations. The other way round is in my opinion a trial-and-error approach which is not scientifically based. You will get an insight into the chemical compounds and with some thermo-dynamic experience you will be able to make a precise selection which thermal regime and which solvents provide the best chance to characterize and extract the chemial compounds of interest.
In addition it is also worth the trouble to investigate the texture of the dump, the granulometry and morphometry of the grains for the processing. It saves time and money during the extraction.
This is a general overview of what you have to address.
Best regards
H.G.Dill
Dear Mr. Taghartapeh,
Dr. Dill has provided a very good answer to your question. Perhaps I can add something that will be useful. From your question, I think you may also be interested in the organic chemicals, in addition to, the mineral phases. If so, then you need something like HPLC (High performance liquid chromatography) or FT-ICR MS (Fourier Transform Ion Cyclotron Resonance Mass Spectrometry). The difference between these two is significant. HPLC is more common and widely available, but you need to know in advance what you are looking for. That is not the case in mass spec. FT-ICR MS is a specialized instrument.
Hope this helps.
Best,
Catherine Peters
Princeton University
Dear Dr Gill and Dear Dr Peters,
First of all, Many thanks for your kind and helpful comments,
In fact, I wrongly introduced the precipitate of a manufacturing process of an antiseptic as sediment...
I am working a pharmaceutical company producing antiseptics and disinfectants, which we observed some precipitates after mixing of ethanol, water and... (Excuse me I could not tell you the other precursors). The precipitate look like a powder having crystals on it.
All of our Precursors are organic but they have some metals ( at ppm level) as impurity with them.
By this definitions, and owing to the restrictions and limitations we suffering here, I think the best approach is playing with solvents starting with non-polar to polar solvents for extraction and then using spectroscopy instruments like FTIR and X-ray crystallography for the determination of structure of precipitate and then scrutinizing the probable synthesis mechanism occurred and then finding the precursors included in the forming of this precipitate by checking the main precursors of our product (the antiseptic) to find an relation between the precursors of precipitate and precursors (or impurities of them ) of our product?
And, I would be very happy to have your comments upon this approach!
Thanks in advance!
Bests,
Mohammad Ramezani T.
you can see the picture of precipitate in attached file!
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