crude trimyristin - Chemistry

PROCEDURE
Weigh out 10 g of ground nutmeg and place it in a 500 mL round bottom flask. Add 90
mL of hexane and a few boiling chips and set up an apparatus for reflux (See the figure on
page 125) . Reflux the hexane-nutmeg mixture, using a steam bath (see Safety: above) as the
source of heat, for 30 min. Determine the mass of your clean, dry 250 mL round bottom
flask, containing a few boiling stones. Remove the mixture from the steam bath (dry any
water from the flask and condenser before removing the condenser from the flask) and while it
is still warm, filter off the residue of the nutmeg by gravity filtration, collecting the filtrate in the
preweighed 250 mL round bottom flask. Rinse out the flask in which you did the original
extraction (i.e. the 500 mL flask) with about 5-10 mL of fresh hexane and filter the washings into
the 250 mL flask. Dispose of the filter paper in the dump in the fume hood.
Set up the apparatus for simple distillation (See the figure on page 124) and distil off the
hexane using a steam bath. Record the temperature (to the nearest 0.5 °C) when the first drop
of distillate is collected in the collection flask and record the highest temperature reached during
the distillation. This will be the collection range for the distillation. Continue heating for 5
minutes after the last of the hexane has distilled over. Dry any water from the distillation flask
and connecting adapter. Dispose of the distilled hexane in the appropriate dump in the fume
hood (make sure you know which flask contains the hexane). Remove the flask containing the
crude product and weigh the flask. Record the mass of crude product. At this point, the
sample likely contains a trace of hexane and will therefore show an artificially high mass. Leave
the flask containing the crude product in your locker for a week (uncorked).
After the product has dried for a week, determine the mass of the flask. Record the
mass. Did the mass change over the week? Store this round bottom flask in your locker until
it is purified in the next lab period.
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REPORT
In the “purpose section”, clearly explain the purpose of the main steps in this
experiment. In the “discussion section”, comment on the change in product mass from week
one to week two. Calculate the percentage recovery of product (be sure to base this on the
mass of product after it has dried for a week) and compare this to the expected value (see
note 2). List sources of error to account for any discrepancy.