Lab Report

Observations for Step 1

In step one of the experiment, we synthesized 1-Bromoalkane from 3-metyl-1butanol and 1-pentanol using SN2 reaction. We started our experiment by collecting all the necessary glassware for the experiment. We were divided into groups each of us having two separate apparatus using the two different alcohols. We then added the HBr, our alcohol and sulfuric acid to the round bottom flasks and began heating to a boiling using a low setting to avoid loss of HBr. We had to use an excess of the HBr to complete the reaction. Our apparatus with 1-pentanol started heating at 2:15pm with 57c temperature and the other group with 3-methyl-1-butanol at around 2:20pm. After 10 minutes we increased the temperature to 66c and reflux started to initiate at about 2:40pm and the other group at 2:45pm. We had to increase the temperature to 80c because it did not start boiling for a long time. At about 3:00pm two layers started to form. Our organic layer had a light brown color while the other group’s was way darker than us and since we used two different alcohols that could be the reason we saw two different colors. After cooling the mixtures to a room temperature, we transferred the bottom layer (acidic layer) into a labeled beaker containing 40 ml of water and additional water was added to wash the 1-bromoalkane in order to remove more of the remaining acids. We then removed the lower layer and placed in beaker labeled lower layer then removed upper layer and placed in beaker labeled upper layer. We then washed the 1-bromoalkane layer two more times with water. After the washing process we waited until two layers separate completely. We then carefully removed the bottom layers and placed in a clean centrifuge tube. We added a tip of a micro spatula of anhydrous sodium sulfate to our product and allow standing for 5 minutes. This would remove the trace amounts of water still present in our samples. We then