Acid-Base Reaction Lab Report

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Extraction procedures involve dissolving solid compounds into a solvent or dissolving a solution into another solvent. Solvent-solvent extraction is a type of extraction that involves two immiscible solvents. One of the solvents is water or an aqueous solution and the other is an organic solvent. An aqueous solution is any solution in which the solvent is water, and organic solvents are hydrocarbon dense, hydrophobic, and insoluble in water. These two solvents will form separate layers. When a mixture of two solids is dissolved in the solvents, the organic compound will dissolve in the organic solvent while the polar compound will dissolve in the aqueous solution. The separation of these layers and evaporation of the solvents will result in…show more content…
The difference lies in the fact that acid-base reactions must occur to properly separate the compounds into each solvent layer. At least one of the compounds in the mixture needs to be acidic or basic, so that acid-base reactions can be utilized to isolate each compound. Acid-base reactions can be used to strategically change the solubility of the compound into a certain solvent. This experiment will focus on the separation of a 1:1 mixture of 4-nitroaniline and naphthalene. Once the mixture is dissolved into the organic solvent dichloromethane, hydrochloric acid is added for the protonation of 4-nitroaniline. This addition of solution separates naphthalene into the dichloromethane and 4-nitoaniline into the acidic solution. The two can be separated and then individually treated to isolate the compound. Dichloromethane can easily be evaporated out of the organic layer due to its volatile nature after a drying agent is used to remove water. However, the protonated 4-nitraniline needs to be deprotonated in order to properly extract the correct compound. To do this, the solution must be neutralized with 6M sodium hydroxide. The neutralization causes 4-nitroaniline to be precipitated

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