A modified spray reagent for the identification of amino acids on thin layer chromatography plates

Natural Products Laboratory, Department of Chemistry, University of Burdwan, Burdwan-713 104. India

E-mail : burchdsa@caL vsnl.net.in

Manuscript receved 3 March 2000, accepted 26 August 2000

A modified ninhydrin spray reagent, 3,5,-dinitrosalicylic acid-ninhydrin is capable of developing various distinguishable colours with many of the amino acids on thin layer plates. The detection limits for amino acids with this spray reagent range from 0.1 to 10 μg and (1.01 to 0.8) μg under two conditions.