The purpose of this lab was to reduce benzoin with sodium borohydride to 1,2-diphenylethane-1,2-diol and have the product analyzed with TLC. The presence of the product and its purity was verified by finding its melting point and comparing it to the provided melting point range. After the product had been reduced, the mass was found to be 0.49g, only 0.01g less than the starting material, giving it a percent yield of 98% as seen in Table 1. This is a high percent yield, which could be a result of a successful reaction. However, the melting point of the crude product shows otherwise, with a wide melting point range of 124-133°C. Knowing that the melting point of benzoin is around 132°C, it is likely that the resulting product was not successfully converted to 1,2-diphenylethane-1,2-diol, but potentially an unpure benzoin product containing perhaps benzoin and the 1,2-diphenylethane-1,2-diol. To improve this, the sodium borohydride could have been added in more even increments across five minutes and waited longer than 20 minutes for a full reaction.
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