In particular, I'd like to find out if my plant extract consists of alkaloids, flavonoids, glycosides, tannin, saponin, carbohydrates, triglycerides, protein, thiols, and sterols. What is the eluent and revealing agent that I must spray on the plate separately for each compound?
You can do this using simple phytochemical screening. Please look up my paper on Phytochemical and Antimicrobial screening of the leaves and twigs of Sclerocarpus africanus for such a procedure..
After running the eluent on your TLC plate, you can visualize your compounds by UV, P-ansialdehyde or ammonia.
I think your question is very wide in terms of its content. Because every phytochemical has its own solvent affinity, solubility becomes a very important factor. For each and every chemical, solvent systems would be different as well as the spraying reagents will be selective based on the chemical nature of the compound in question. I would suggest you to consult following books which are primary sources on TLC of any type of phytochemical and always provide a sureshot solution:
1. Stahl E (1967). Text Book of Chromatography, 2nd Ed., Springer-Verlag, Berlin.
2. Wagner H, Baldt S. (1996). Plants Drug Analysis, Springer Verlag, Berlin Heidelberg,
3. WHO (1989). The Validation of Analytical Procedures used in the Examination of Pharmaceutical Materials, WHO/Pharm. 89541, rev 2 Genf,.
4. Harborne JB (1973). Phytochemical Screening Methods In: A Guide to Modern Techniques of Plant Analysis. 1st Edition, Chapmann and Hall, London.1973
5. Stephen K Sim. Medicinal Plant Alkaloids: An Introduction for Pharmacy Students
6. Stephen K. Sim Medicinal plant glycosides
Regards
I agree with Alok. You can find the theory and procedural details about TLC in the attached document.
All the Best
Three types of solvent mixture
1. Non-polar
2. Nonpolar + Polar
3. Polar
Alkaloids- Dragendrof,
Flavanoids: NP-PEG or 10 % KOH
Glycosides: Test of sugars
Terpenoids and Steriods: AS, VS or 10 Sulphuric acid
Phenolics: Ferric Cholride or UV
There is many more reagents, depend on specific categories of compounds, But by doing this you can get overall portfolio of your plants chemical flora.
Carried out phytochemical screening of your extracts, it will reveal the presence of flavanoids, tannins, alkaloids, saponins and phenolic compounds. TLC is a technique with large applicability in the fields of plant material analysis. TLC is a simple, quick and inexpensive procedure that indicates how many components are in a crude extract. TLC has many advantages such as lower cost, short time analysis, the possibility of multiple detection and specific derivatization on the same plate.
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