I am currently doing my research on a paper on secondary metabolites of medicinal plants I am having a hard time finding a good reference for the Rf factors of the different compounds which are common in plants (e.g. alkaloids, terpene). I only used thin layer chromatography (TLC) for the separation of the different secondary metabolites. Are there any references that you can suggest that I use for this paper?
Dear K. Sai Pavithra
I think no reference can provide you with the required information. This is because the presence of many mobile phase systems as well as the diversity of the compounds that belong to each type of the phytochemical classes.
All the best
The polarity of plant metabolites range from very non-polar terpenes through very polar carbohydrates and tannins. Even within these classes, different functional groups can drastically alter their adsorption on silica TLC. As a result, there is no single TLC solvent system which elutes all compounds produced by plants.
Check previous compounds isolated from this genus, this would help you know the classes of compounds you have. Then you would be able to perform TLC.
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