Liberty's Elysium Chromatography Part 1

Caveat emptor ... well... I guess you aren't buying anything... but still... when I have access again to my thin-layer-chromatography supplies I want to try this again in a more controlled environment. I have some issues with this and needed more time, and chemicals to really make good comparisons and analysis... but that will take time... and I want to post now...

I know that Noodler's LE is special... I like it... why do I like it... why does it do what it does...

Now then...

In the right corner we have Noodler's Blue and in the left corner we have Noodler's Liberty's Elysium battling for space in my teal Parker 51... this match was brought to you by on Hammermil card stock and Ozarka distilled water.

I am not a chemist... I am a teacher... This is more of a.... hobby... left over from previous work. YOUR MILEAGE MAY VERY... Like I said at the beginning, this is the start of something bigger I am trying to do, but it is interesting. This is not the most scientific or thorough part.

I have seen the battery of tests everyone puts these inks through, but what really makes ink fascinating for me is all the things that are going on to get us what we have going for us... beautiful colors with a myriad of properties.

To preform simple paper chromatography... I took ink and put a dot and a line on cardstock. The pencil mark is there to designate a starting point for the ink. The two samples sat in shallow glasses of 70 F water (21 C) ... they sat there for 5 hours wicking water through the paper. Then they dried.

The idea here is that paper is polar, non-polar components travel further up than more polar components.

Conclusions:

I have none yet... because I need to do a bunch of tests with different stationary and mobile phases. So anything I could say could be debunked in a matter of hours by anyone... even me... possibly... depending on the data

Here are my *current* observations.

1. Neither completely separated out.

2. LE has a vary bright turquise non-polar element that is very non-water-fast on cellulose

3. Noodler's blue is starting to give up its base color (and probably will in time) while LE finished separating out at its base and is holding fast.

4. Noodler's Blue seems to be a tighter (all components are similar) solution. LE seems like it has two distinct parts... the bright part... and the water proof part.

Again... I am starting to form ideas as I am doing this with all my inks... I have the summer offish (I am a teacher) I will catalog a lot of these things on my webpage http://tomvoboril.com check it out.... otherwise.... thoughts?

We often talk about trade-offs in inks... there was even a post about "impossible inks" I think the more we understand how this components interact with each other... the more we appreciate the magic of fountain pen ink... and the more we appreciate what we DO have...

Finally.... this was not perfect... from a long shot... but it started my gears churning, and if if gets anyone else thinking in the same direction... awesome...