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Discussion afterwards of the experiment

Submitted by michaelkim on Wed, 04/11/2018 - 10:28

Discussion:

            In this lab, different esters were given to prepare before the lab even began. Given Isopentyl propionate, had to measure alcohol and carboxylic acid precisely that was calculated before the lab began. Then added sulfuric acids about 4 drops mixing them well. Distillation step then followed trapping the water with the help of sand bath to boil. As the vapors condensed and was ready to tip over, kept the lower water phase and got rid of the upper organic phase. For 45 minutes reflux was done. As it cooled down, water and sodium bicarbonate was added to remove the aqueous layer once again. Then calcium chloride was added then took the organic layer into the vial and put it in the capped vial. The ester at the end smelt fruity almost like a pineapple vodka. It was given for an IR spectrum test to prove how it is an ester and not something else. From the esterification IR spectrum graph, it can be proven as an ester since there is a huge curve around 2800-3000 which is only displayed by an ester. 1740-1750 is a carbonyl group that was displayed as an ester. The only thing on this graph that displayed failure was at around 3400 ish, which is where alcohol is displayed. This just means that some alcohol was displayed but it went below half way which means all the acid was gone. The % yield for the given ester was 70.13% which was high. 

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