Ronald Ogbu, Alex
27th Aug. 2013
Purpose:
To separate mixture of acetone and toluene using simple, packed and unpacked distillation columns.
Results and Discussion: There were three distillation setups: simple, unpacked and pack fractional. All three procedures had different distillation apparatus but the unknown mixture was the same for all. The unknown liquid in a 50 ml round bottom flask was heated in a heating mantle such that a distillation rate of one drop per second can be achieved. After taking the initial temperature at 0ml volume, the temperature was recorded every 2 ml of distillate. At about 40 - 50 0C it was observed that the heated liquid sample begins to reflux in the tubes until the first distillate was collected. The mixture contains 20 ml acetone + 20 ml toluene. It is expected that at a temperature range of 56 – 57 0C all or most of the Acetone contained in the mixture should have separated from Toluene which have a boiling point of 110-111 0C. Therefore, in other to verifying the separation success, after about 20 ml distillate has been collected, 2ml of distillate and residue was collected into two separate test tubes and their refractive index was taken. The distillation worked because the refractive index value that was derived was very close to the known refractive index values for both compounds in their pure state. However, the distillate may not be considered pure especially the distillate from simple distillation because simple distillation works best when it used to separate non-volatile from a solid or the boiling point differs by at least 70 0C, which is not the case of the mixture used. But for the most part of the experiment, the data collected matched the anticipated outcome of the experiment.
Conclusion:
Based on the success of the three distillation used to separate acetone and toluene mixture, it is logical to say that