Steam Distillation Essay

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Lab Report 1: Steam Distillation
Introduction: The purpose of this experiment was to isolate eugenol or clove oil from cloves using steam distillation and determine whether it is an efficient way to carry out this experiment. Also, TLC and 1H NMR were preformed to analyze the purity of the isolated eugenol.
Theory: Steam distillation uses boiling point to separate organic liquid and water. The organic compound must be immiscible with water, have a high vapor pressure at 100˚C, and may decompose before boiling point is reached. Steam distillation increases the vapor pressure of water more than the vapor pressure of the organic compound as temperature rises to reach the boiling point of the mixture which is a little less than 100 ˚C (boiling point of water) but a lot less than 254 ˚C (boiling point of eugenol). Since the liquids are immiscible, the total vapor pressure only depends on the vapor pressure of each component added together and not the mole fraction leading to a higher vapor pressure which corresponds to the lower boiling point.
Extraction separates compounds based on their solubility. A separatory funnel allows two distinct layers (aqueous and organic) to form when two immiscible liquids are separated with the more dense liquid on bottom. In this lab, dichloromethane (organic) has a density of 1.33g/mL while water (aqueous) has the density of 1.00g/mL, so dichloromethane will be on the bottom and since “like dissolves like” and eugenol does not dissolve in water but dissolves in dichloromethane, eugenol will be found in the dichloromethane layer.
TLC allows identification of compounds based on polarity. Nonpolar compounds move higher up on the TLC plate than polar compounds because polar compounds are more attracted t...

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..., and is immiscible with water. Since there was not clear distinct two layers after steam distillation, extraction was used to separate the eugenol from water thus, steam distillation is not an effective way to isolate eugenol by itself. In order to determine how pure the isolated eugenol was, TLC was performed and compared to the standard and 1H NMR of the isolated eugenol and standard were compared to conclude that the extracted compound was eugenol with some impurities.
Appendix:
Mass of Eugenol:
Mass of Vial + Eugenol- Mass of Vial= 16.498g-16.429g=0.069g Theoretical Mass of Eugenol:
Mass of Eugenol/ Total Mass of Cloves x 100= Mass % x/4.976 x 100=17% x/4.976=0.17 x=4.976x0.17=0.85g
Percent Recovery:
Actual Mass/Theoretical Mass X100= 0.069g/0.85g x100= 8.12% Rf Value
Rf= Origin to Center of Spot/ Origin to Solvent Front Line= 1.5cm/5.3cm=0.28
3.4 cm/5.3cm=0.64

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