Question

Hi, organic chemistry folks! Can someone edit my short paragraph about my experiment on simple distillation of an unknown organic liquid. It needs to be concise, clear, intepreted, and contain relevant values. Hopefully, I did those but I'm just having trouble wording it all together. Thanks!

The purpose of this laboratory experiment was to purify and identify a volatile organic liquid of unknown #3 by performing a simple distillation technique. The purified unknown #3 was characterized via BP and IR. After the first drop of the distillate collected and had a distillation temperature of 58.0 °C, there was a constant rate of one drop per second throughout collecting 7 mL of the distillate. The observed boiling point reached a constant temperature of 65.0 °C throughout 2-7 mL of collecting the distillate, which fit the literature BP range of 65-67 °C of the liquid compound tetrahydrofuran. The IR obtained had a characteristic a narrow C-O stretch at 1066 cm^-1 as well as Csp3-H stretches at a range of 2861-2933 cm­­^-1 From these data, it was concluded that the unknown #3 was purified and contained tetrahydrofuran.

Answer 1

The purpose of the laboratory experiment was to characterise an unknown #3 volatile organic liquid. The liquid was first purified by simple distillation technique. The distillation was performed with gradual increase in temperature. The collection of distillate started around 58 °C. The rate of distillation was constant, i.e , around one drop per second. With this rate about 7mL of liquid was distilled out. Further, boiling point was observed at constant temperature, i.e, 65 °C; at this temperature 2-7mL of liquid was collected. The boiling point matches with tetrahydrofuran (lit. 65-67 °C). IR spectrum reveals aliphatic C_sp3-H stretches at a range of 2861-2933 cm­­^-1 along with a narrow C-O stretch at 1066 cm^-1. From these data, it was concluded that the unknown #3 was tetrahydrofuran.