Hexane Synthesis Lab Report

3) The method used was the liquid/liquid extraction because it was able to separate the non polar product in the organic hexane layer and remove the impurities in a polar water layer. This process was repeated numerous times to get rid of as many impurities as possible. After separation, DME was added to the organic layer to remove water impurities which then was further purified by roto-vaporation. This technique also was useful in removing impurities and to separate the liquids from the product efficiently.

Initial Results and Interpretation After testing whether the experiment ran the whole way on a TLC plate , it was determined that there were distinct differences among the co-spots and mixtures. Because of this, Para-fluorobenzaldehyde and acetophenone were chosen based on the results from the TLC plate as seen in figure three. The spots showed that the reaction ran to completion as the starting material, acetophenone and the final product had distinctly different RF values. As a result, this helped support the initial hypothesis that was made due to the

The first method was the recrystallization method. The recrystallization method was used to check the purity of the product through vacuum filtration. Once we created a solid substance we put what was thought to be the product into hexanes. Since the solid substance did not mix with the hexanes it was determined that this was not the organic layer. Because of this, a liquid-liquid extraction had to be done. Using water as the organic solvent, the liquid from our reaction was poured into the funnel and the compounds separated due to the difference in relative solubility. Because of density, the organic layer separates to the top. The results from the TLC that was conducted after these purification methods can be seen in Figure