Organic Chemistry Investigation Help

[Ryan W S]

Hi

 

I'm currently studing the OCR Salters Advanced Chemistry Course at school, and about to start the A2 Individual Investigation. Amongst the ideas I have, I am most interested in looking at organic synthesis of a compound. In terms of the practical content it would get me high marks as the techniques used could/will include reflux, distilation etc. However, I can not think of any significantly hard calculations that i could do to go along side the work, except calculating percentage yield.

 

There are many marks available for calculations that are fairly complicated, so if possible could i have some suggestions on what I could calculate from synthesising a compund such as oxidising butan-1-ol to butanone.

 

Many thanks

 

Ryan

[mississippichem]

Hi

 

I'm currently studing the OCR Salters Advanced Chemistry Course at school, and about to start the A2 Individual Investigation. Amongst the ideas I have, I am most interested in looking at organic synthesis of a compound. In terms of the practical content it would get me high marks as the techniques used could/will include reflux, distilation etc. However, I can not think of any significantly hard calculations that i could do to go along side the work, except calculating percentage yield.

 

There are many marks available for calculations that are fairly complicated, so if possible could i have some suggestions on what I could calculate from synthesising a compund such as oxidising butan-1-ol to butanone.

 

Many thanks

 

Ryan

 

Try running the synthesis at different concentrations of substrate and oxidant. Run the synthesis once at regular concentration, then double the concentration of one of the reactants. Use the old handy rate equation to calculate the rate constant and determine the kinetic order of each reactant as well as the overall order of the reaction. Are you familiar with these calculations?