Does anyone have experience analyzing small quantities of pheromones using TLC? Any advice or guidance would be greatly appreciated.
The detection limit of a compound in Thin Layer Chromatography (TLC) relies on several factors, including the sensitivity of the detection method, the compound's characteristics, and the quality of the TLC plate. Typically, TLC can identify compounds within the nanogram to microgram range. However, the exact minimum quantity can differ and should be determined through experimentation for each compound and detection system employed. It is crucial to optimize the TLC conditions and select suitable visualization techniques to enhance the sensitivity and detection of the desired compounds.
Joseph Akabandi Thank you very much for the reply, the matter is that we would like to identify an aldehyde in insect extract but this compound very small amount maybe a picogram, what do you think increasing the insect quantity in the extract would give any chance of to identify the active component by this technique?
Increasing the sample concentration above the "minimum detection level" will help. But unless a technique such as DART is used, the best that you can tell is that the compound in the spot contains an aldehyde group depending on the visualization technique, which isn't identification. If you think you know what the compound might be, you can run a reference lane on the TLC plate and confirm that both compounds have the same retention.
TLC is a sensitive technique - microgram (0.000001 g) quantities can be analyzed by TLC - and it takes little time for an analysis (about 5-10 minutes).
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