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what is wrong with the following procedures? 1) a mixture of an alkane and a car

ID: 688675 • Letter: W

Question

what is wrong with the following procedures? 1) a mixture of an alkane and a carboxylic acid was dissolvedin ether and extracted with 10% HCl. when the ether extract wasdried and the solvent evaporated only a gummy residueremained. 2) a mixture of an amine, RNH2. and other items in CH2Cl2 wasextracted with 10% HCl. the aqueous layer was discarded and theorganic layer contained no amine. what is wrong with the following procedures? 1) a mixture of an alkane and a carboxylic acid was dissolvedin ether and extracted with 10% HCl. when the ether extract wasdried and the solvent evaporated only a gummy residueremained. 2) a mixture of an amine, RNH2. and other items in CH2Cl2 wasextracted with 10% HCl. the aqueous layer was discarded and theorganic layer contained no amine.

Explanation / Answer

For Question 1, in order to extract carboxylic acid, you will needto use a base, such as NaOH. The base will turn thecarboxylic acid into a salt and it will be in the aqueoussolution. Then you add HCL, to get the carboxylic acid toprecipitate out. Since this was not done, it would not allowthe carboxylic acid to come out as a normal precipitate. For question 2, when HCL was added, the amine would have convertedto RNH3+ and dissolved in the aqueous layer from the organiclayer. Since the aqueous layer was thrown out, the aminewould have been thrown out as well.