Abstract
A reflux apparatus was assembled with a water-cooled condenser and a drying tube. Isopentyl alcohol, glacial acid sulfuric acid is added to a 25 milliliter round bottom flask and attached to the reflux apparatus. The mixture was boiled, the extracted first using water followed by aqueous sodium bicarbonate. The mixture was dried using anhydrous granular sodium sulfate. After dried, the sample was placed in a distillation apparatus and heated. This resulted in 1.8g of pure isopentyl acetate, a 44% yield.
Introduction
Isopentyl acetate is yielded by combining isopentyl alcohol with acetic acid using sulfuric acid as a catalyst. The product is isopentyl acetate also known as banana oil. Banana oil is an ester. Esters can be found in fruits and flowers' scents. When water is added to an ester, the process can be reversed and a carboxylic acid can be formed. In order for a substance to be boiling for a long period of time, a reflux apparatus should be used in order for liquid not to be loss. As vapors rise from the boiling mixture, they are immediately cooled as they rise towards the water-cooled condenser.
Extraction is where a solute is transferred from one solvent to another. For the solute to transfer to the other solvent, both solvents must not be miscible forming two separate layers. An important characteristic of extraction involves intermolecular interactions, dipole with dipole, ionic with h-bonds, etc. Alike molecules will attract, while not like molecules will remain. Extraction will not result in a pure sample, so another technique is needed to yield a pure result.
Distillation is a technique that can either result in a pure substance or bring a mixture closer to a pure substance. The process works by heating a sample to boiling which causes vapors to rise and pass through a condenser and cool back to a liquid into a receiving flask. Only if the heated sample is pure a temperature reading will be