Asked by James

A diels-Alder reaction of cyclopentadiene with Maleic Anhydride experiment was conducted in lab. But I was wondering why we added ligroin to the maleic anhydride and ethyl acetate. I know ligroin can be used as a solvent and it is also nonpolar, though ethyl acetate is also a solvent and nonpolar in this experiment. I am a bit confused, would you please explain? why were these molecules used?
Answered by Devron
I had to look up the protocool for this experiment, and ethyl acetate is not nonpolar, but it is not one of the highly polar solvents. It has a polarity slightly higher then hexanes, which is what ligrion is, or better yet, it has polarity index comparable to hexanes; MIT has a nice little document of their site that you can look up if you want. The reason that you are adding ethyl acetate is just to dissolve maleic anhydride, the amount of ethyl acetate, which is about the same for this experiment in O-chem labs, doesn't affect the reaction mixture. It is just used to dissolve the maleic anhydride.
Answered by James
So if ethyl acetate was the solvent, then what was the ligroin used for?
Answered by Devron
ligroin is the solvent, ethyl acetate, from what I have read in the protocols, is used to dissolve maleic anhydride. Doesn't your protocol say to dissolve maleic anhydride in about 7.5ml of ethyl acetate?
Answered by James
Well .4ml of ethyl acetate, But then it tells you to to .4 ml pf ligroin
Answered by Devron
Okay, the ones that I see say 7.5ml of ethyl acetate to 7.5ml of ligrion. This must have to do with saving money so that you still learn what you are suppose to learn from this lab. However, the role of ethyl acetate is to dissolve the maleic anhydride. Most likely, ligrion would not do as well of a job at dissolving maleic anhydride, and its addition to the reaction mixture once it is added to the cyclopentadiene-ligrion mix, would not affect the polarity of the reaction mixture to prevent it from going to completion and producing the desired products.
Answered by James
ok. Thank you so much for your help.
Answered by Que
If use 100 g maleic anhydride will the experiment effect
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