Question

I will be given an unknown in an organic chemistry lab. one solid and the other is liquid and I have to identify what is the unknown. I can do IR on liquid unknown only, and the melting point on solid.I need to identify the functional groups I have in both unknowns on the first day how can I do that? I'm not sure where to start and how to go on?

Answer 1

You can easily identify the functional groups with the help of the IR spectroscopy. IR spectroscopy is best technique to identify the functional group. You can do the NMR spectroscopy also for checking the functional group. For solid sample beyond the melting point you can do the various functional group test to identify the functional group in the solid samples like alcoholic group test, amino group test, carboxylic acid group test, phenolic group test, ketonic group test, unsaturation test, charing test like ninhydrine and valine charing test.