I've noticed in the past that sometimes (it's compound-specific, of course, mine was a ketone that was presumably reacting with the alcohol on silica)
when using alcohols I would sometimes get two spots from a single pure compound. I confirmed this with 2D TLC. One of the spots split into two on
developing with the same eluent a second time. Whether or not this is relevant to your case I can't say, it would depend upon the nature of any
interactions of your compounds with the eluent, or the plate itself. You'll have to give a lot more details if you're genuinely looking to resolve the
problem, such as the type of plate, functional groups in your compounds (or preferably the structure of the compound itself) and details such as that.
Maybe the temperature of the eluent was different -- that can affect the Rf values considerably. I don't understand how you can have a streak on a
spot with Rf 0. By definition it is at the origin, no? |