Temperature Range Lab Report

For this experiment, the pure products appear to be in the first and fifth fractions because these fractions had stabilizations of boiling points whereas the other fractions featured comparatively larger boiling point ranges. However, it is important to note that the second fraction had a significantly larger volume than the rest of the fractions did, and only a 4C temperature range reading. This suggests that there could have been some pure product in the second fraction as well, especially because the temperature range was increasing slowly until about 3 mL of distillate had been collected, and then it thermometer readings increased rapidly. The data for this experiment would have been more comprehensive if the after these 3 mL had been collected, a new fraction had been collected with the distillate from the more rapidly increasing temperature range reading had

Comparing the boiling point temperature ranges of the fractions containing pure product to the literature values, the results obtained from this experiment seem to be consistent with the reported literature values. The first fraction, most likely containing methyl acetate was collected when the boiling point stabilized at 56 C, until it started changing more rapidly at 58C. The literature reports that methyl acetate has a boiling point of 56.7 C1, which is directly in this range. The fifth fraction, most likely containing ethyl acetate was collected when the boiling point stabilized at 75 C and until the temperature reading started changing again more rapidly at 77 C. The literature boiling point of ethyl acetate is 77.1C2, which while not exactly in this range, is very close to the boiling point range obtained in this experiment, suggesting that a pure sample of ethyl acetate was obtained in the fifth fraction. One limitation of this experiment was the fact