2-Methylcyclohexanol Dehydration

On a large scale ethanol and ethanoic acid is added to get the product ethyl ethanoate and water.

The objective of this lab was to create a ketone through an oxidation reaction using a using a secondary alcohol and oxidizing agent in order to use that ketone in a reduction reaction with a specific reducing agent to determine the affect of that reducing agent on the diastereoselectivity of the product. In the first part of this experiment, 4-tert-butylcyclohexanol was reacted with NaOCl, an oxidizing agent, and acetic acid to form 4-tert-butylcyclohexanone. In the second part of this experiment, 4-tert-butylcyclohexanone was reacted with a reducing agent, either NaBH4 in EtOH or Al(OiPr)3 in iPrOH, to form the product 4-tert-butylcyclohexanol. 1H NMR spectroscopy was used to determine the cis:trans ratio of the OH relative to the tert-butyl group in the product formed from the reduction reaction with each reducing agent. Thin-layer chromatography was used in both the oxidation and reduction steps to ensure that each reaction ran to completion.

The carbon-carbon double bond of alkenes represents a site that has a high electron intensity. This site is susceptible to oxidation. Depending on the conditions or reagents used to initiate the oxidation of alkenes, various products can be obtained. With relative mild oxidation, it is only the pi bond of an alkene that is cleaved resulting in the production of 1,2-diols or epoxides. However, when there is more vigorous

Alcohol dehydrations are widely used in many industries to produce alkene. In this experiment 2-methylcyclohexanol was dehydrated to three possible products using phosphoric acid as a catalyst. The main tool for this experiment is the Hickman still. First, Drierite was added to the Hickman still so that any excess water formed during the experiment will be absorbed. It also acted as a boiling stone and addition surface to increase surface area. Next, 0.75 mL of 2-methylcyclohexanol is added to the still and right after 1 mL of phosphoric acid is added. The phosphoric acid (H3PO4) acts as a catalyst in order for the reaction to occur. The mixture is heated up to between 120o Celsius and 160o Celsius. If the temperature goes above 165oC then

Whereas for simple distillation, the compounds need to be around 80C apart in order for proper separation to occur. Thus, cyclohexane and toluene were not able to be properly separated since the boiling point for cyclohexane was 80.74C while the boiling point of toluene was 110.6C—there two boiling points are fairly close to one another. Thus, the mole fraction for cyclohexane and toluene were fairly low when compared to cyclohexane and

We used TLC analysis to identify each product obtained from the dihydroxylation reactions by spotting a TLC plate with the product of our reaction, a solution of cis-cyclohexane, trans-cyclohexane, and a 50:50 mixture of the two. We then placed the plate in a beaker with ethyl acetate saturating the atmosphere to allow the TLC plate to develop. Finally, we compared Rf values of the components of the mobile phase, after the phase was completed. 100% ethyl acetate was used instead of 100% Hexane or a mixture of Ethyl Acetate, because ethyl acetate has high polarity and can separate the components of a mixture to elution, unlike hexane, which is non-polar, and therefore unable to separate the components of the mixture. A 50:50 mixture of both would not work, because the polar and non-polar compounds would neutralize the mixture, and thereby not separate the components of the mixture.

Method: Distillation is based on the fact that the matter can exist in three phases - - solid, liquid and gas. As the temperature of a pure substance is increased, it passes through these phases, making a transition at a specific temperature from solid to liquid (melting point--mp) and then at a higher temperature from liquid to gas (boiling point--bp). Distillation involves evaporating a liquid into a gas phase, then condensing the gas back into a liquid and collecting the liquid in a clean receiver. Substances that have a higher boiling point than the desired material will not distill at the

Objective: The main goal of this lab is to learn how separation of binary liquid mixtures is performed. Especially when the two liquids have boiling points varying by about 30° C. Hexane can be separated from toluene in this experiment because of the difference in their boiling points. Since toluene has a higher boiling point, it will left at the bottom while the hexane starts to boil out and collect in the Hickman still. GC measurements help us in determining how accurate our data is by making a graph of the amount of hexane and toluene in each fraction. Also this lab gives experience with semi-micro

In this experiment, distillations were done. This is a technique that utilizes the differing boiling points of two or more compounds in a mixture in order to separate the compounds from the mixture. The way fractional distillation works is that the initial mixture is boiled up to the point of the lower boiling point compound; this compound then evaporates. This compound is then

The purpose of this lab was to carry out a dehydration reaction of 2-methylcyclohexanol by heating it in the presence of phosphoric acid and determining which alkene product would be the major product. Methylcyclohexanols were dehydrated in an 85% phosphoric acid mixture to yield the minor and major alkene product by elimination reaction, specifically E1. The alkenes were distilled to separate the major and minor products and gas chromatography was used to analyze the results and accuracy of the experiment. The hypothesis was the major product of the reaction would be the most substituted product. This conclusion was made because of

The solution that was performed in this experiment was to use sulfuric acid in order to form a protonated alcohol, so when the halogen or nucleophile back attacks the compound, water is displaced. Once the alcohol is protonated, the solution reacts in either an SN1 or SN2 mechanism.

To carry this out, the initial mixture would be broken up into smaller fractions and each fraction would be distilled according to simple distillation procedures until a pure drop of lower boiling point liquid could be collected—since this pure concentrated compound boils before the other less volatile compound. This obviously is not practical as it yields a very small volume of distillate; however the theory which supports such a procedure is the same theory which the procedure of fractional distillation is built upon. The only difference between the apparatus set-up used for simple distillation and that which is used for fractional distillation is that fractional distillation makes use of a fractional distillation column which is in between the stillhead and the flask containing the pot residue. Some examples of fractional distillation columns are Vigreux columns and Hempel columns. Vigreux columns are marked by indentations while the Hempel column is often packed with material such as glass beads or stainless steel sponge as well as glass tubing sections. The purpose of such a column is a bit muddled at first however when placed in the context of the theory of the series of simple distillations it can be understood that this column simply concatenates the series of simple distillations into one

The products of interest within this experiment are 2-methyl-1-butene and 2-methyl-2-butene from sulfuric acid and phosphoric acid catalyzed dehydration of 2-methyl-2-butanol. The reaction mixture was then separated into its separate alkene components by steam distillation and then analyzed by gas chromatography (GC), Infrared Radiation (IR) spectroscopy, and Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) imaging. Gas chromatography is an analytical technique that is able to characterize if specific compounds exist in a reaction mixture, even if they are in low quantities, assess how much of a compound exists within a reaction mixture relative to other components within the sample, and determine the purity of an isolated product. In the case of this experiment, gas chromatography is used to analyze how pure the alkene reaction sample was and if any remnants of impurities or 2-methyl-2-butanol remained in the sample after isolation of alkene components.

Distillation is a method of separating two volatile chemicals on the basis of their differing boiling points. During this lab, students were given 30 mL of an unknown solution containing two colorless chemicals. Because the chemicals may have had a relatively close boiling point, we had to employ a fractional distillation over a simple distillation. By adding a fractionating column between the boiling flask and the condenser, we were able to separate the liquids more efficiently due to the fact that more volatile liquids tend to push towards the top of the fractionating column, thereby leaving the liquid with the lower boiling point towards the bottom. After obtaining the distillates, we utilized a gas chromatograph in order to analyze the volatile substances in the gas phase and determine their composition percentage of the initial solution. Overall, through this lab we were able to enhance our knowledge on the practical utilization of chemical theories, and thus also demonstrated technical fluency involving the equipment.

The purpose of this experiment was to separate a two component mixture using fractional distillation. Distillation is a process of vaporization than condensation of a substance, used primarily to separate substances from a mixture when there are different boiling points. Fractional distillation is when the mixture has multiple substances with similar boiling points, and a fractional column is used to create multiple vaporization/condensation cycles. Fractional distillation is important when two or more substances need to be separated, but they have similar boiling points.