This is the procedure for the lab... This is the question I am curious about....

Question

This is the procedure for the lab...

This is the question I am curious about....

I think that the sulfuric acid mixture needs to be kept below 5 degrees because of the possibility of further nitration of methyl benzoate and that the nitric acid mixture needs to be introduced slowly since we could overheat the beaker and cause possible side reactions...

is my assumption correct?

Clamp a 25 mL Erlenmeyer flask containing a stir bar to a ring stand and place the flask in an ice bath. Add 3 mL of Concentrated sulfuric acid to the Erlenmeyer flask, turn on the stirrer, and then add 0.5 mL of methyl benzoate. Cool this mixture to 5°C. Add 0.8 mL of ice-cold Concentrated nitric acid to this mixture drop by drop, swirl the flask to mix well after each addition. Do not let the temperature of the reaction rise above 8°C. The addition of the entire amount of nitric acid should take about 20 min. After the addition of nitric acid

Explanation / Answer

a) The temperature of methyl benzoate and sulphuric acid mixture need to be kept below at 50C to decrease the reactivity of sulphuric acid as concentrated sulphuric acid is a very strong acid and high tempertaure may lead to an extremely exothermic reaction.

b) Nitric and sulfuric acid mixture needs to be introduced slowly below 80C due to the following reasons

1) to avoid excessive formation of byproduct
2) At higher temperatures there is a greater chance of getting more than one nitro group substituted onto the ring (dinitro)
3) To minimize some side reactions, which occur at a slower rate, while allowing the desired reaction to proceed

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