Cellular Metabolism Review

16. The chromatographic strip with a stain of spinach on it and placed into a chromatography solvent will have the components of the spinach migrate along the length of the strip. What determines the position of the components along the length?

Note the chromatography strip along the left side. The pigments mixed in with chlorophyll are now evident.

Orange colored carotenes are at the top, followed by xanthophyll, chlorophyll a and chlorophyll b.

The position of the various pigment is determined by weight. The light weight pigments diffuse more quickly and are at the top and the heaver pigments diffuse more slowly and are at the bottom.