two compounds with the same Rf values

There is a very tricky lab question and i have done so many searches on the net and still couldnt find the answer. I was wondering whether some of you could help me with this problem. thank you :frown:

Question: Two compounds have the same Rf (0.87<-dont know what this is) under identical conditions. Does this show that they have identical structures? Explain your answer.

And I know the answer to this question is a NO but I have no idea on how to explain it or to come up with any kind of similar examples?

Thank you so much for taking your time to read this post :smile:

Reply 1

charco

Study Forum Helper

There are a near infinite number of different compounds. If you are able to measure an Rf value to within an accuracy of 0.1% this means that there are only 1000 possible values.

Logically many substances must have the same Rf value.

A similar example would be melting points.