puzzledstudent - 17-10-2006 at 07:17
in an extraction of a 1:1 mixture of benzoic acid and 1,4-dimethoxybenzene, after the benzoic acid is extracted and you're left with crude
1,4-dimethoxybenzene, i'm told to add saturated aqueous NaCl. why is that? please help.
Maja - 17-10-2006 at 07:33
I don't know from what you try to extract it .... But maybe to precipitate it from your solvent(I think it's alcohol?) ?
Nicodem - 17-10-2006 at 09:22
Maybe it just says to wash the extract with brine. That way it would make sense.
1,4-dimethoxybenzene is pretty much insoluble in water and using brine to reduce solubility is thus useless.
YT2095 - 17-10-2006 at 10:39
what extraction method do you use to seperate the 1:1?
perhaps it`s some sort of bizare neautralising method or even a typo?
unionised - 17-10-2006 at 10:43
The salt might be there to reduce the solubillity of the dimethoxybenzene. OTOH, it might be there to reduce the solubillity of the solvent. For
example ether is quite soluble in water. This ether/ water mixture is probably a much better solvent for the dimethoxybenzene than clean water or
brine. Also you can use less solvent this way because it doesn't get "lost" in the water layer.