Grignard Reaction Lab

The purpose of this lab experiment was to take the reagents of magnesium and Bromobenzene to create the Grignard reagent of phenylmagnesium before its converted to the final product of triphenylmethanol. Then the product was purified via methods such as recrystallization and filtration, before it was finally characterized via a series of methods such as TLC, melting point, IR, H NMR, and C NMR. Before the lab even began, the first thing done to ensure a safe successful reaction was to oven dry all the glassware used in the experiment for 25 minutes. After those 25 minutes, the first thing done to achieve these goals was to obtain 0.1548 g of magnesium ribbon. When magnesium is stored, it starts to react with the oxygen and this forms a magnesium oxide layer that hinders the
While a lot of the magnesium was stuck to the side, it eventually changed to brown-ish after 20 minutes of stirring. What this color showcased was that the Grignard reagent was actually forming. What was happening at a chemical level when the reaction began stirring was that on the surface of the magnesium, since the magnesium was partially positive, it donated 2 of its electrons with help of the ether solvent, causing a bond to form between the bromine and magnesium to form, and thus the formation of the Grignards reagent. After this color change was noticed, more bromobenzene was added in small 0.5 increments for multiple reasons, such as to ensure the complete formation of the grignards reagent, help the magnesium dissolve, and to minimize side product formation, since adding all the extra bromobenzene at once could destabilize the reaction. Very little heat was also added to the reaction mixture via the hot plate, but the flask was hovered above the hot plate, and why this was done was to help in the dissolving of the