Thanks for the reply Steve. We just did a simple distillation, not fractional. If, theoretically, we did save the wrong layer, would that kind of behaviour appear in a simple distillation as well?
I'm fairly certain that we saved the right layer... it seemed pretty obvious at the time - one layer was quite watery-looking and the other one looked pretty oily. After heating the alcohol and acetic acid under reflux, we washed the stuff twice, once with water and once with aqueous sodium bicarbonate. Both times, we removed the layer that looked clearer - I'm pretty sure it was the bottom layer.
I wouldn't be surprised if it was a bad hot plate... I'll just add it to the rest of the crappy lap equipment... >:(... but I just wanted to be thorough. Thanks again! |
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