A Reagent for the Detection of Amino Acids on Thin-Layer Chromatography Plates

Abstract

Detection or identification of amino acids is most important in
protein chemistry as they are monomeric units of proteins and also
for the determination of their occurrence in natural products.
4-Hydroxyacetophenone-ninhydrin is able to produce various colours
when it reacts with amino acids, whereas ninhydrin itself can
only give same purple colour with most of them. The detection
limits for amino acids for the proposed spray reagent range between
0.1 and 1.0  μg under cold condition and 0.01 and 0.1  μg after
heating.