Thin layer chromatography (TLC) profiling of Malay traditional herbs / Raihanah Ayob

The main objective of this study is to obtain TLC profiling of Malay traditional herbs. TLC allows separation, detection, and quality evaluation of herbal medicines. The study begins with selection of 13 Malay traditional plants and preparation of plant extract solution. The methods for TLC include preparation of TLC tank, spotting the TLC plate, developing the chromatogram, identification and visualization, and calculation of Rf values. TLC also used to compare the standard plant sample with product containing that plant, to identify the presence or absence of a particular substance in the product. TLC provides a simple, cost effective way of rapidly determining the compounds available in Malay traditional plants. TLC is considered as reliable technique in order to qualitatively determine the compounds inside a plant if certain conditions are take into consideration with controlled environment and certain procedures are carefully conducted throughout the study.