Each species has a different concentration of pigments. This might require experimentation with various numbers of disks. For example, if I was to extract pigments from a clover sample I would use 2 disks of area .5877 cm2 in 5ml of solvent. Collect leaf samples by punching leaf disks using a rubber stopper and a leaf punch. Leaf disks must then be quick-frozen in liquid nitrogen.
Liquid nitrogen can be very dangerous if improperly handled.
Keep the time between punching and freezing as short as possible by having all sample holders ready and labeled ahead of time. Instrument set up 1. Fill the black and the blue ice containers with ice from the basement or the third floor cell biology lab and get all pigment extraction materials. This means you will not be able to load the parameters from the IC card and the setup will basically look screwy if you try to run a sample. The chromatogram is running, that is you see the pen moving and a line being plotted.