Potassium carbonate can be used as a drying agent for drying solutions of some o

Question

Potassium carbonate can be used as a drying agent for drying solutions of some organic compounds. Would it make a better drying agent for carboxylic acids or for amines? Why? An aqueous solution consisting of 50 mg of butanoic acid 5 mL water is to be extracted 3 times with 1.0 mL ether. If the distribution coefficient for this extraction is equal to 8.5, how much acid will remain in the aqueous layer after the three extractions? In isolating the neutral component of the your unknown, an ether solution of the unknown is obtained, and dry compound obtained by evaporating the ether with either a stream of nitrogen of by placing the solution in your drawer. Why is this preferred to heating the solution on a heating block to evaporate the ether?

Explanation / Answer

1)

potassium carbonate (K2CO3, n=2, e=moderate) are both of basic nature and often used to dry basic solutions containing amines. They cannot be used to dry acidic compounds since they react with them.

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