I dissolved my dry sample with ethyl acetate and ran it with TLC. It came out with very nice results; the major compound was shown on the TLC. But when I tried to dissolve my dry sample in methanol the major compound was not there anymore and the bands were faint. This result was obviously not as nice as the result with ethyl acetate. Does methanol react with the compound? Or is methanol is not suitable at all for this?
Dear Lee. Nice question for separation, its depands on nature of your samples and in your case Ethyl acetate give you best separation then you continue with it not require to use methanol for that and if you want to resolve it more and conform sigle compound is there or not then after separation of TLC you can collect that spot and do re TLC or also if possible then you can use two dimension TLC, hops now you can understand and if have any question related to separation then ask me without any hesitation.
Regards
Dr vipul Davariya
It means your major compound is soluble in ethyl acetate. So you should focus on the ethyl acetate soluble fraction for TLC and isolation. As you say the major compound is absent from methanol, then there is no need to proceed in that direction. Methanol is not suitable. I am a bit surprised why are you switching to methanol when you got a good separation with ethyl acetate.
Methanol is a polar protic solvent which also can act as a nucleophile. Ethyl acetate is a polar aprotic solvent, non-nucleophilic in nature. There is a possibility that your compound might have reacted with metanol.
However, if you actually ran your second TLC in metanol, your compound might have moved all the way up with the solvent front because methanol is very polar. If you use any kind of stain for TLC developing, you can easily check it.
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