Question

Hello,
I have two questions

Why is simple distillation useful in isolating pure isopentyl acetate?

How do you predict the major peaks that would be observed in a isopentyl alcohol and isopentyl acetate infrared spectra?

Answer 1

I'm not sure what solvent that is mixed with the isopentyl acetate, but distillation is good for separating it from its solvent because of the boiling point between it in the solvent, presuming that the solvent has a relatively lower boiling point then isopentyl acetate.

IR is good for identifying really one peak as far as isopentyl alcohol, an OH stretch at about 3500 that looks like a bird wing. For isopentyl acetate, you are really only looking for a sharp peak at about 1700 to indicate a carbonyl group. You can identify more, but H NMR is usually used to identify the structure in o-chem, and IR is used mainly to provide information concerning the type of oxygen groups present.