I have a unknown carboxylic acid and an unknown alcohol…?
Saturday, May 29th, 2010 at
9:56 am
I mixed them together and using reflux I got an ester. I figured out the ID of the ester (n-pentyl ethanoate), but how do I figure out what my two original unknowns were?
I found its boiling point, melting point, and its refractive index. Then compared them to some true values.
Tagged with: Acid • alcohol • carboxylic • unknown
Filed under: Acid Reflux Alcohol
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In general, a specific ester can only be formed by reaction of a specific acid/alcohol pair.
RCOOH + R’OH < ---> RCOOR’ + H2O
If you formed n-pentyl ethanoate, you had to start with n-pentanol(R’) and ethanoic acid(R).
You wd have gotten an ester having same formula wt by reacting n-pentanoic acid(R’) with ethanol(R)…ethyl n-pentanoate, R’COOR… but physical props wd be different. (How did you identify the product?)