Reflux is used to help carry a reaction to completion because the starting reagent has a slow reaction time. The purpose of reflux is to increase the reaction rate by boiling, but not to vaporize the products due to the low boiling points. The mixture of the starting material were heated first under reflux by increasing the rate of reaction through heating with a condenser attached because the temperature can be controlled while the condenser preserves the reagent by chilling the vapors. At the end of reflux, the mixture contained the products of each starting material. The mixture goes through reflux first because simple distillation does not allow enough time for the reaction to reach completion before separation. The solution goes through simple distillation after reflux to separate the products using the boiling points. For 1-propanol, the boiling point is around 97°C. Boiling point for 1-propanol is higher than the product produced, 1-bromopropane, which boils at around 72°C. The distillate should form around 72°C and should drop into the receiver at around 116°C, which creates the desired product of 1-bromopropane. The temperature range of …show more content…
In both 1-propanol and 2-pentanol, the broad O-H bond around 3300cm-1 was substituted on the IR spectrum with a sharp peak at around 3000cm-1, which represents the sp3 C-H bonds, for the products because the OH was replaced by bromine. A C-Br bond should have appeared at around 690-515 cm-1. The IR spectra for 1-propanol also had a CH2 and CH3 bonds on it at around 1500cm-1. The same thing happened in the IR spectrum for 2-bromopentane and 3-brompentane, but there were no distinct peaks for 1-bromopropane even though the NMR spectrum corresponded to the structure of 1-bromopropane. For 1-bromopropane, there was a chemical shift around 3-4ppm, which indicates the presence of a electronegative