I have made n-butyl bromide several times. I have always used the procedure in Pavia, usually at 4X scale. As Crowford stated, the Pavia procedure
specifies a mole ratio of 1.5 for NaBr:n-butyl alcohol. When I first did this in school at the book scale (1X) my yield was 60.6%. Did you base
your yield on the limiting reagent?
Also, Pavia specifies only one distillation. Washes provide the initial cleanup. |