Steam Distillation

Steam Distillation

Purpose: To use steam distillation to purify heat sensitive, natural products, like essential oils.

Procedure

Please refer to:

Williamson, Macroscale &Microscale Organic Experiments 4th Ed., pgs.98-109

Results

Table 1.1: Steam distillation

Drop # (every third drop) Temperature (Ñ"C) Addition of 0.5 mL water

1 100.3 Water added

2 100.5

3 100.5 Water added

4 100.6 Water added

5 100.6

6 100.6 Water added

7 100.6

8 100.6 Water added

9 100.3

10 100.6

Observations: The residue was cloudy during distillation. This indicated that it was wet. The water was added when the solution appeared to be getting low in volume.

Table 1.2: Recovery of organic material

Object being weighed Weight in grams

Weight of empty, clean test tube 6.446 g

Weight of clean test tube with spearmint oil 6.635 g

Weight of spearmint oil 0.189 g

Table 1.3: IR Spectroscopy

Frequency Corresponding Functional Group

3083.81 C-H

2923.91 C-H

1674.33 C=O

Conclusion

In this experiment, the process of steam distillation was used to purify a natural product, (the essential oil of spearmint). This phenomenon works because when two immiscible liquids are distilled, the boiling point of the mixture is below the boiling point of the both pure compounds. Since water has a significantly lower boiling point than spearmint, a much greater