Question

If a student were to recover 22% trimyristin from a 10.0g sample of nutmeg, answer the following questions:

a. What is the experimental/actual yield of trimyristin from this solid/liquid extraction?

b. If you utilized a saponification (hydrolysis) reaction to generate myristic acid and glycerol from the recovered trimyristin (see hydrolysis reaction scheme below), what would be your theoretical yield of glycerol (example calculation provided below)?

c. If you obtained 1.58 g of myristic acid from the saponification reaction below, what would be your percent yield of myristic acid?

Trimyristin MW = 722 g/mol -----> (Saponification/Hydrolysis) 1 mol Glycerol MW = 132 g/mol + 3 mol Myristic Acid MW = 228 g/mol

Answer 1

a. The experimental/actual yield of trimyristin from this solid/liquid extraction is 22 %.

b. 722 g of Trimyristin gives 132 g of Glycerol upon Hydrolysis.

So, 2.2 g of Trimyristin will produce (132/722) * 2.2 g = 0.40 g of Glycerol theoreticaly.

c. From, 722 g of Trimyristin we get (3 * 228) g = 684 g of Myristic Acid.

So, 2.2 g of Trimyristin will produce (684/722) * 2.2 g = 2.08 g of Myristic Acid theoreticaly.

The actual yield is 1.58 g.

The percent yield is calculated as {(1.58 / 2.08) * 100} % = 75.96 %