Li Yang Fu ID:85927224 Chem 51LC Section 40354 TA: Eugene Gutman Chem 51LC Lab Report1: Isolation of Eugenol from Cloves Purpose: This purpose of this experiment is to use steam distillation to separate eugenol from cloves. Moreover, there would be NMR and TLC taken for checking whether the product is eugenol. Theory: Steam distillation is a technique that is usually used for separating compounds that are temperature sensitive. In addition, in this experiment, steam distillation is used for separating eugenol from cloves. The reason is that, oil is insoluble in water, and each of them has their own vapor pressure; only one would occur during distillation. Furthermore, the solution will start boil when total pressures of the two compounds is …show more content…
For the TLC result, the point of standard eugenol and the point of experimental eugenol are really close to each other, which mean that the steam distillation is effective for separating eugenol from clove. Moreover, by comparing the NMR spectra provided on web and experimental spectra, the two spectra are similar; have peaks at the almost the same place. For both of the spectra, around 3.2ppm there is doublet for R-CH2-R, around 3.9 ppm there is singlet O-CH3, around 5 ppm the peak is for =CH2, around 5.5 ppm the singlet is for –OH, lastly, peaks around 6.7ppm is for aromatic ring. Although the NMR and TLC have proofed that steam distillation is an effective way to extract eugenol from cloves, the percent recovery is very low, 28.3 %. Anyways, it could be explained; while doing the steam distillation, the solution is being boiled at high temperature, and this might cause eugenol to