Separation of a Mixture Containing Calcium Carbonate and Naphthalene

During recrystallization, the solution was to be cooled to room temperature before placing it in an ice bath. Doing this allows enough time for the crystals to be formed because as the temperature decreases, the rate of crystallization slows down. If the solution was placed in the ice bath too quickly, then the cold would have blocked out the impurities and trapped them in the solution. The more impurities present, the lower the melting point so data would have been inaccurate. Also, if the melting point apparatus wasn’t set up correctly, the data would have been imprecise.

In the lab we filled the first beaker up with water. Then we took a pipet (filled with the liquid) and dropped water droplets onto the

The vial was removed from the heat and cooled to room temperature. The spin vane was rinsed with 2-3 drops of warm water over the conical vial. The vial was cooled to room temperature then placed in an ice bath for 15 minutes. The liquid was decanted from the mixture and the resulting crystals were dried on filter paper. The crystals were then placed on a watch glass for further drying. The crystals were weighed and a small sample was placed into a capillary tube for melting point determination.

21) After all of the solid dissolves, move the flask from the hot plate and allow it cool to room temperature. After a while, crystals should appear in the flask.

The purpose of this experiment is to practice common organic laboratory techniques inside the lab to get one oriented to the basic methods of procedure that can be used for later experiments. This experiment involves the separation of benzoic acid from a more crude form, consisting of benzoic acid, methyl orange, a common acid/base indicator, and cellulose, a natural polymer of glucose (Huston, and Liu 17-24). The technique that is used to perform this separation is called extraction. Extraction is a systematic process of separating mixtures of compounds, taking advantage of the affinity differences of compounds to separate them (Padias 128-37). This technique recognizes the principle that “like dissolves in like,” that is,

Three grams of a mixture containing Benzoic Acid and Naphthalene was obtained and placed in 100 ml beaker and added 30 ml of ethyl acetate for dissolving the mixture. A small amount (1-2 drops) of this mixture was separated into a test tube. This test tube was covered and labelled as “M” (mixture). This was set to the side and used the following week for the second part of lab. The content in the beaker was then transferred into separatory funnel. 10 ml of 1 M NaOH added to the content and placed the stopper in the funnel. In the hood separatory funnel was gently shaken for approximately one minute and vent the air out for five seconds. We repeated the same process in the same manner one more time by adding 10ml of 1M NaOH.

Now, take the vial and place it into a laboratory drying oven. Leave it here for at least one hour to get the most accurate of results. After it is heated, place the vial into a desiccator to help bring it back down to room temperature. Finally, records its mass one last time. Keep placing the vial into the desiccator until the mass of the crystals and vile stops

In order to gently heat the sample, move the burner back and forth to achieve minimal heating. It is important to not overheat the sample. After heating the sample, turn off the burner and let the sample fully cool with the lid on top. After about ten minutes, lift the crucible lid and observe any changes that occurred to the sample. You must reheat the sample if there are blue-green crystals. Heat the sample until the crystals turn brown. After the sample has fully cooled, measure and record the mass of the crucible with the lid and sample.

Tube 4 now should only have crude solid in the tube and it is then weighed. The tube is placed into a 50℃ water bath and then approximately 0.5 -1 ml of methanol is added, as well as H2O until the solution gets cloudy, once the solution is dissolved it is cooled to room temperature and then iced. The crystals are then collected using a Hirsh funnel. Next a small amount (~ 0.1g) of the crystals are placed into a melting point tube and placed into the melting point machine to record the unknown neutral substances melting point.

The weight of each 50ml beaker (used for weighing the mass of dissolved Potassium chloride after the evaporation of water) should be recorded. If the experimenter were to weigh the mass of one beaker and take it as a default mass, the latter may be a source of error.

The pipet was put into the top of the condenser and leaving no open spaces. The vacuum served to get rid of the nitrogen oxide gases that were formed during the oxidation reaction. The solution was heated for 30 minutes, beginning the time when the first sign of nitrogen oxide fumes were observed. After the 30 minutes, the solution was removed and cooled for a few minutes. The solution turned was a brownish-yellow color and all the crystal were dissolved, leaving a liquid. The solution was then transferred, using a Pasteur pipet, to 3 mL of water in a beaker. The reaction flask was rinsed to remove the remainder of the solution. The solution was stirred with a glass rod until room temperature of the solution was achieved. A yellow solid was to form, but instead the solution remained aqueous in the case of the specific experiment explained here. With additional scraping of the solution with a glass rod, no crystals formed at all. The next procedure, if the crystals had formed was to crush the solid with the glass rod and filter the solid until the crystals were dry. The mass would then be weighed and the crystals were to be recrystallized with 95% ethanol. The crystals were to be cooled in ice water to get full crystallization and then the crystals were to be filtered and air dried, then weighed.

1) Separate the solid from the liquid in the beaker by decanting the liquid. Ask your instructor to demonstrate the correct procedure.

This process was then repeated two more times with subsequent additions of 10 mL of the 0.5M aqueous NaHCO3 and the aqueous layers drained off into the above mention labeled 100-mL beaker. Finally 5 mL of deionized water was placed into the funnel and mixed. The water was then drained off into the beaker containing the aqueous solution extracts. The solution was then saved until need later in the experiment.

The purpose of this experiment is to separate a mixture of salicylic acid and naphthalene using extraction, recrystallization and sublimation techniques. Extraction is the separation of compounds from a mixture based on their relative solubilities in different solvents. Sublimation is the process of separation by which a substance transitions from the solid phase into the gas phase, skipping the liquid phase. Recrystallization involves dissolving a substance in an appropriate solvent then crystallizing it as it cools (impurities remain in solution). The melting points of the substances were determined in order to assess their purity and the percent recovery of pure naphthalene and salicylic acid were calculated. According to the results, the melting point of pure naphthalene was between 86°C -89°C range, whereas for pure salicylic acid was 167°C -170°C. Both determined melting points were higher compared to the literature value of 80.26°C and 158.6°C for pure naphthalene and salicylic acid respectively. Lastly, the percent recovery for pure naphthalene and salicylic acid were 17.7% and 71.2% accordingly.

Once cooled, the mixture was then transferred to a separatory funnel using the funnel while avoiding adding the boiling chip. 10 ml of water was then added to the mixture. The mixture was gently shaken and the phases were allowed to separate. The funnel was then unstopped and the lower aqueous phase was drained into a beaker. 5 ml of 5% aqueous NaHCO3 was added and then shaken gently. A great deal of caution was taken into consideration because of the production of carbon dioxide gas which caused pressure to develop inside the funnel. The pressure needed to be released so the funnel was vented frequently. The phases were allowed to separate and the lower aqueous phases was drained into the beaker. After draining, 5 ml of saturated NaCl was added to the funnel and then shaken gently. Once again, the phases were allowed to separate and the lower aqueous phase was drained into a beaker. An ester product was produced and was transferred into a 25 ml Erlenmeyer flask. This organic product was then dried over anhydrous Na2SO4 to trap small amounts of water in its crystal lattices thus removing it from the product. Finally the ester was decanted, so that the drying agent was excluded from the final product.