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Synthetic Edgarana Oil By The Process Of Synthetic Banana Oil

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The purpose of experiment five was to create synthetic banana oil by the process of Fischer esterification. This process is when an acid, like acetic acid, is combined with an alcohol, which in this case was isopentyl alcohol. The resulting product was isopentyl acetate, but Fischer esterification processes are known for not going to completion, so some starting material may be present in the final product. The resulting product should contain no more than 10% isopentyl alcohol and no more than 2% acetic acid. Gas chromatography, infrared spectroscopy, and 1H NMR were used to test the purity of the final sample. The initial step on the experiment was to mix isopentyl alcohol with acetic acid and reflux for an hour. Concentrated sulfuric acid was also added to the solution to act as a catalyst, which increased the rate of the reaction during reflux. Excess acetic acid was added to shift the equilibrium toward the products because if the reaction started with equal amounts of reactants, only two-thirds of each reactant would be converted to isopentyl acetate. This means isopentyl alcohol is the limiting reagent.
After reflux, the solution was washed with water because isopentyl acetate is insoluble in water whereas acetic acid and sulfuric acid are both water soluble. Washing the product with water got rid of most the unreacted starting materials, but another wash with sodium bicarbonate was needed to completely get rid of them. A wash with sodium bicarbonate converted the

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