Hydration Of Alkenes Lab Report

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Hydration of alkenes is the acid-catalyzed addition of water to a carbon-carbon double bond leading to the formation of an alcohol. An equilibrium is established between two competing processes, hydration and the opposite reaction of dehydration. The position of the equilibrium depends on the reaction conditions. These conditions include hydration of a double bond that requires excess water to drive the reaction to completion and dehydration of an alcohol requires water removal in order to complete the reaction. In this experiment, the alkene is norbornene and the product alcohol is exo-norborneol. The mechanism involves formation of a carbocation by addition of a proton to the double bond of norbornene. The less sterically hindered side of …show more content…

The ether formed from the reaction holds about 1.5% water. A brine (saturated NaCl solution) wash is used to try and prevent water from being in the ether to get a pure product. Steric hindrance can also play a role in this reaction causing either one product or both to form. Steric hindrance is the stopping of a chemical reaction which might be caused by a molecule's structure. It causes steric effects to arise from the fact that each atom within a molecule occupies a certain amount of space. If atoms are brought too close together, there is an associated cost in energy due to overlapping electron clouds and this may affect the molecule's preferred shape and reactivity. Steric hindrance occurs when the size of groups within a molecule prevents chemical reactions that are observed in related smaller molecules. Although steric hindrance is sometimes a problem, it can also be a very useful tool to change the reactivity pattern of a molecule by stopping unwanted side-reactions. Steric hindrance between adjacent groups can also restrict torsional bond …show more content…

The experiment talked about the evaporating drying process of the product and what the results of the evaporating process is. In this experiment, ether is the product being dried using evaporation and it states that the evaporation of the ether gives the pure compound. A pure form of the compound should be the result of evaporation. For this experiment, the results illustrated that the product had impurities because of a low percent yield and a low melting point. The results do not comprehend with this experiment because the evaporating drying process was done incorrectly or not done for the appropriate amount of time. The product should have been dried longer to result in a pure

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