Caffeine Extraction Experiment

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The objective of this experiment was to perform extraction. This is a separation and purification technique, based on different solubility of compounds in immiscible solvent mixtures. Extraction is conducted by shaking the solution with the solvent, until two layers are formed. One layer can then be separated from the other. If the separation does not happen in one try, multiple attempts may be needed. The experiment was conducted in three parts: Part A of the experiment consisted of extracting caffeine from an aqueous solution; Part B consisted of using three different compounds: benzoic acid, succinic acid, and sodium benzoate; and the last part of the experiment consisted of using a solid neutral compound with an acid or base impurity. …show more content…

This was done by adding caffeine to water. The caffeine dissolved immediately in water as water is a polar compound. The polarity is due to the dipole interaction formed due to the electronegativity difference between oxygen and hydrogen, where oxygen is more electronegative and thus has a positive charge. Caffeine is polar due to many oxygen-carbon and nitrogen-carbon polar bonds. Since, both compounds are polar, caffeine easily dissolves in water. The organic layer was evaporated later in the experiment leaving the solid caffeine behind. The experiment started out with 0.170 grams of caffeine. However the calculations indicated that 0.07098 g of caffeine should be extracted. Experimentally, 0.060 g of caffeine was left as the end product. The reasons for the experimental value being lower than the calculated value could be due to the inefficient mixing of the aqueous layer and the methylene chloride layer in the separatory funnel. This could have resulted in lesser quantities of methylene chloride with caffeine causing the experimental value to be …show more content…

The distribution coefficient of Benzoic acid was 10.1, the distribution quotient of Succinic acid was 1.22, and the distribution quotient of Sodium benzoate was 0.818. When a distribution coefficient was calculated, it considered the mass of the organic layer/mass of the water layer. So, if there was less substance present in the mass of the organic layer, and more in the water layer, it meant the substance in question was more polar (water is highly polar and the organic layer is less polar) and would thus have a lower distribution coefficient. As such, usually the more polar a compound, the lower its distribution quotient, and the less polar a compound, the higher its distribution quotient. Therefore, it can be said with some certainty that Sodium Benzoate is the most polar followed by Succinic Acid, and finally Benzoic

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