Naphthalene And Benzoic Acid Synthesis Essay

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In this experiment, the goal is to separate naphthalene and benzoic acid from one gram of a crude mixture containing them both, using extraction. A general requirement of a solvent in extraction is solvating one of the pure compounds in solution but not the other. Position in the separatory funnel is determined by density of each layer. The denser layer will be on the bottom of the separatory funnel while the less dense layer will be the top layer of the separatory funnel. For extraction to be used as an effective method for separation, the components of a mixture that need to be recovered must not be soluble in the same solvent. Benzoic acid is not soluble in water, but is soluble in diethyl ether. In benzoic acid, the benzene ring is nonpolar …show more content…

The aqueous layer was on the bottom because it was denser than the organic layer. The aqueous layer contained the benzoic acid and the organic layer contained the naphthalene. The drying step was partially successful in the experiment because it rid the organic layer of excess water. In the end, the melting point range of the naphthalene was 55-62 °C, unlike the actual determined melting point of 80.2 °C. There is a possibility that less than needed sodium sulfate had been added to the organic layer mixture because the melting point could have been negatively affected by excess water not absorbed by the sodium sulfate. The acidification step was successful, because it allowed the Benzoic acid to precipitate out. There was a 58% yield of benzoic acid from the crude sample, and a 98% yield of naphthalene and benzoic acid, which is great as far as results go. It means enough hydrochloric acid, HCl, was added for the conjugate acid, benzoic acid, of the base, benzoate that was in the aqueous layer Erlenmeyer flask before the addition of the acid. The separation of naphthalene and benzoic acid seemed successful as far as turnout of product came. Out of the 1.00 g of crude sample started with, 0.40 g of naphthalene was recovered and 0.58 g of benzoic acid was recovered. But as far as comparing the observed Mel-temp melting points to the actual melting points, there was a big difference between the values observed and the real melting point values. The Mel-temp temperatures for benzoic acid and naphthalene were 85-95 °C and 55-62 °C, respectively. The actual values of temperature for benzoic acid and naphthalene were122.4°C and 80.2°C, respectively. This showed that the “pure” samples were still impure in some way. It seemed as though maybe not enough vacuum filtration and drying time were causations of impure samples, probably tainted by water. The crude sample Mel-temp temperature was 55-63 °C. This

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