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Ethyl Acetate Lab Report

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Discussion

As part of the experiment, the percent composition of each component of the mixture was calculated. 51% of the components were retrieved from filtration while 49% of the solvents were retrieved from dissolving the components in a solvent.
The original mixture was one globular solid-like structure. The first step, to separate the mineral oil from the mixture, was achieved by placing the mixture into ethyl acetate. Mineral oil is the only substance in the mixture that dissolves in non-polar solvents like ethyl acetate, so this helped separate that part from the rest. To get oil by itself, the ethyl acetate must also be boiled off. Mineral oil’s boiling point is much higher than ethyl acetate’s, so it was a good solvent for this process. The remaining ethyl acetate would change states (from liquid to gas) while the mineral oil would remain in its liquid state. The rest of the mixture (the sand, KNO3, and CuSO4) would remain solid and be caught on the filter paper while the dissolved oil and ethyl acetate would go through into the flask. Sand is a network solid that does not dissolve easily; it has such strong bonds that only a strong acid can break. Potassium nitrate and copper sulfate do dissolve in polar substances, so using water as a solvent would be logical. After heating the mixture of sand, potassium …show more content…

Potassium nitrate has a lower solubility in solution at lower temperatures compared to copper sulfate. Cooling the mixture to freezing temperatures allows more of the bonds of potassium nitrate to re-associate and become a solid, allowing it to be extracted via vacuum filtration. Copper sulfate’s bonds stay disassociated more often in lower temperatures of water, so it would flow through the filter paper with the water. If the temperature of that remaining mixture were continually lowered, it would precipitate and could be extracted via vacuum filtration as

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