Recrystallization Essay

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Purpose: The purpose of this experiment was to isolate trimyristin from nutmeg by performing a simple solid-liquid extraction, to purify the impure product from the nutmeg by recrystallization and to assess the purity of the resulting material by using melting points. Procedures: We began by taking one large nutmeg in its solid form and grinded it up using a mortar and pestle for five minutes. The nutmeg in its solid form was brown in color and smelled sweet like cinnomin. Before crushing the nutmeg weighed 3.419 grams. We weighed the resulting powder to be 3.228 grams. We then transferred the powder nutmeg into a 50 ml round bottom flask and added 15 ml of dichloromethane. We placed our flask in to a standard heat reflux apparatus and gently refluxed the mixture. We waited until we saw the first drip of liquid in the apparatus and heated for 15 minutes. After the mixture was heated, there was solid on the bottom and liquid on the top of the flask. The set up was let cool to room temperature. Next, we decanted the mixture in to a clean 100 ml beaker. We rinsed the remaining solid with 10 ml of DCM and swirled the mixture. The mixture was decanted again in to the same beaker. Next, we added boiling chips to the liquid and evaporated the solvent over the hot plates under the hood. After the solvent was evaporated and the flask was cooled, we used a spatula to remove a small amount of the crude product and took its melting point. We determined the melting point range of the sample to be 43.0-46.0 degrees Celcius.The crude product was yellow colored when it was warm and orange in color when cooled and sticky. We then recrystallized our sample using 5 ml of warm acetone that was heated on a hot plate under a hood. The warm acetone was poured in to the beaker with our crude sample and swirled. The beaker with our sample was then placed in to an ice bath to cool and

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