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Purifying A Compound Of Benzoic Acid

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Introduction
The purpose of this lab was to purify a compound of benzoic acid through the process of recrystallization. This was done in a couple steps, first dissolved the product to be recrystallized in hot solvent then filtered off impurities, then filtered to isolate the crystals from the recrystallizing solvent [1]. For this method to work there were many different theories that play a role, one of the theories is solubility. Solubility is a chemical property that a solute is able to dissolve in a solvent [2]. This plays a huge role in the experiment as the first step was to dissolve the crude benzoic acid in water. Solubility was important because if the crude benzoic acid did not dissolve within the solvent then the impurities would …show more content…

However, the successfulness of the experiment depends on the purity of the original crude benzoic acid. This means that if the crude benzoic acid was completely pure to begin with the percent yield should be 100% but, if the benzoic acid was only 70% pure then the percent yield should be 70%. This also explains why the theoretical yield for this experiment is impossible to obtain unless, the pureness of the crude benzoic acid was known ahead of time. To describe the product itself the benzoic acid was white in colour and made up of very small crystalline structures. At the end of the experiment I had a percent yield of 63%. There are many different points throughout the experiment where the percent yield could possibly decrease to have a lower overall yield. One point in the experiment where this could have happened is where cold water was used to wash the product while it was in the Buchner funnel by suction. During this step some of the product may have dissolved with the water and get sucked up into the waste. This is due to the fact of the solubility of benzoic acid, at 20 °C is 0.29 g/L[4]. Another point would be adding decolorizing charcoal, adding this charcoal was meant to bind to the impurities. However, adding too much of this charcoal would result in it binding to the benzoic acid, overall resulting in a decrease of the percent yield. The final possibility for the lower percent yield would be due to the …show more content…

In the first step the benzoic acid had to be dissolved in the solvent, water, so that the impurities can separate from the benzoic acid. Next, the solution was cooled slightly to add decolorizing charcoal in order to remove the impurities. Then, the solution was heated up again for 20 minutes. Then, the solution was filtered so the charcoal wouldn’t be in the final product. Finally, when filtering with the Buchner funnel the water was cooled this was used to prevent the benzoic acid from dissolving in the water and being flushed away with the rest of the water.
The melting point of benzoic acid is 122.35 °C [5]. The melting point determined from the experiment is a range from 118°C - 120°C. The reason for the experiment producing a melting range compared to a melting point is due to impurities as well for the reason of a lower melting point [1]. Impurities within the product lowers the melting point due to intermolecular forces, this causes benzoic acid to not have as strong of a bond together in its crystal structure as there are impurities in the way. This allows a lower level of heat to melt the benzoic

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