The Effects of Hurricanes in Bananas Plantation

After receiving alarming news from the Cavendish Distilling Company or CDC, about their delicious Banana Elixir. It seems after Hurricane Floyd they lost the majority of their bananas’ and are now in need of an alternative source for a banana flavoring, to avoid bankruptcy. Luckily for the CDC, there is a known way to get the chemical that can be used in place of the oil from a banana. That chemical in this experiment will be known as isopentyl acetate. Isopentyl acetate is an Ester, an Esters are usually created from reacting a carboxylic acid with an alcohol, along this an acid catalyst. This gives an Ester and some products, usually water. In this experiment Acetate acid and Isopentyl alcohol will be used with a sulfuric acid catalyst to synthesize the isopentyl acetate. Unfortunately some reactions, including this one, is reversible and the reaction may not fully go in the direction wanted throughout the entirety of the synthesis. To no surprise even after Reflux, there will be some isopentyl alcohol and acetate acid that didn’t react together.

Refluxing is a laboratory procedure in which you can separate pure amounts of the mixture, by separating them using their different boiling points. In a reflux, the glassware will heat up at different temperatures and depending on the boiling points of the individual chemicals used, the chemicals will evaporate and then condense back down, due to the cooling system of running water attached to the reflux system. Although you can say the chemicals at split up they need to be actually separated, a separatory funnel was used to do this. Using a base and some water along with our mixture, the two acids used should react nicely with this added water and base. Giving a nice separation of a...

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...uccessfully, and smelled wonderfully of banana, but it wasn’t a quantity that would be every profiting. Although if the experiment was done again the results maybe more profitable, the CDC may still be in a bit of a pickle. That’s the trouble with hurricanes, banana trees don’t stand a chance. As to if the isopentyl acetate had any isopentyl alcohol left in it, I would assume not. The worry in this experiment whether any of the isopentyl acetate was lost if it had indeed traveled with the isopentyl alcohol durning distillation.

Works Cited

Portlock, David E., Catalyst: The penitence hall custom laboratory program for chemistry, “RECRYSTALLIZATION AND MELTING POINT MEASUREMENT”.Wright State University, Dayton, 2010. Pp.51-58.

Ketcha, Daniel L., “Organic Chemistry Laboratory: week four”. Power Points slides, Wright State University, Dayton, 2014. Pp. 1-6.