Creating Chemicals From Putrid Acids

854 Words2 Pages

Purpose: To create sweet smells from putrid acids by following a formal laboratory procedure.

Hypothesis: If carboxylic acids and alcohols perform chemical synthesis, the resulting product will smell sweet.

Materials:
 50 ML beaker
 Hot plate
 3 microscale test tubes
 Boiling stones
 3 plastic pipettes
 Scissors to cut pipettes
 Pencil or marker
 Organic acids and alcohols

Procedure:
1. A 50 ML beaker was filled with around 30 ML of water.
2. A boiling stone was dropped in.
3. The beaker of water was placed on a hot plate and the water’s temperature was brought to a gentle boil.
4. Test tubes were labeled with the labels 1, 2, 3.
5. The acids were smelled by wafting, and recorded in the data table. Five drops of the appropriate …show more content…

The alcohols were smelled by wafting, and the smells were recorded in the data table. Ten drops of the appropriate alcohol was added to the test tubes.
7. One drop of the concentrated sulfuric acid, H¬2SO4, was added to each test tube.
8. A boiling stone was dropped into the mixture in each test tube.
9. Each mixture was smelled by wafting, and the smells were recorded in the data table.
10. A plastic pipette was cut so that it was shorter than the length of the test tube. The test tube was put in with the stem down, and that so the bulb was loosely sealed off the tube.
11. The test tubes were placed into boiling water and heated for five minutes, or until the smell was no longer putrid.
12. After five minutes, the test tubes were removed from the water, and the hot plate was turned off.
13. The pipette was removed from the test tube. It had nothing but vapors in it.
14. The pipette was squeezed, as to allow wafting and smelling of the vapors. The smells were recorded in the data table.
15. The chemicals were disposed of, and the hot plate was turned …show more content…

This was proved in the lab because most molecules that were produced after the acid-alcohol mixture was heated smell sweet. Another fact that proves the hypothesis is that every molecule produced ended with the suffix “-ate”, which indicates that said molecule has the functional group “ester”, which smells sweet. The reason why the mixture changed into water and a sweet smelling molecule was because the heat caused a hydrogen and an oxygen to break off an acid, and a hydrogen to break off the alcohol molecule. The hydrogen and oxygen that broke off the molecules then formed the water, while the remains of the two molecules joined together to make another

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