Student: Gage Davies October 15, 2015
Partners: John Hey and Garrett Harmon Dr. Dilip Paul
Organic Chemistry Laboratory I (CHEM-336-04)
Report 2
Sublimation of Caffeine Extracted from Tea Leaves
Introduction:
The purpose of this experiment was to gain experience in performing sublimation of a compound. This experiment had three main portions. The first involved boiling the tea bags to dissolve the caffeine in water. The second portion involved adding methylene chloride to the tea to create two distinct layers, separating the caffeine from the tea portion. Caffeine is more readily dissolvable in methylene chloride, creating two layers. An added benefit of using the methylene chloride is that methylene chloride is denser than water[1] , creating two very distinct layers, allowing for a simple extraction. The final portion of the experiment involved subliming caffeine and gathering the caffeine…show more content… According to Chemicool, “extractions are a way to separate a desired substance when it is mixed with others.”[2] This principle is utilized in the extraction of caffeine by the addition of methylene chloride to the solution to separate caffeine from other substances present in tea. Sublimation is used in this experiment in order to purify caffeine. Sublimation is the change of a substance from the solid phase to the gas phase without a liquid phase. By utilizing sublimation and temperature changes to crystallize caffeine crystals, the crystals are purified. IR spectroscopy is a technique used primarily in organic chemistry labs in order to help identify a compound. IR spectroscopy involves shining infrared light at a molecule and measuring how the molecule reacts to the light. The infrared light produces vibrations in the bonds of a molecule which are called bends or stretches. These bends and stretches produce peaks in an IR spectrum, which help chemists identify the compound they are working with