Quote: Originally posted by macckone | It sounds like your hot plate wasn't getting the reaction mixture hot enough, then you flooded it with ethanol.
If too much water or ethanol is added then sulfuric acid loses its effectiveness as the catalyst.
In commercial operations the sulfuric acid is cycled to dry it.
Every mole of ether that is produced makes a mole of water.
edit:
You were using 95% ethanol, that contains water, you definitely flooded your reaction.
[Edited on 11-8-2020 by macckone] |
correct, that must be the case.
that means my distillate is ethanol/water mostly?
this can be fractionally distilled to reuse the ethanol.
and the solution that is left from my reaction flask is sulfuric acid/ water mixture.
this can be boiled to re concentrate the sulfuric acid to 95% ?
then reuse |