Steam Distillation Lab Report

One major observation made throughout this experiment was during the steam distillation. As the steam distillation started and the solution in the flask began heating, it was clear that too much stopcock grease was used around the glassware. The grease from the connecting ends of the three way connecting tube was melting and seeping into the clove and water solution in the two necked round bottom flask. The solution in the flask was immediately discarded and repeated with clean glassware and a very minimal amount of grease to avoid unwanted contaminations in solution.
When the methylene chloride and ether were boiled and evaporated, the remaining solution, the clove oil, was a slight yellowish color.
Data/Results:
The infrared spectroscopy
The sample of clove oil had a split injection from the machine that passed helium gas into the vaporized clove oil to lower the concentration. This is because prior to the the split injection and addition of helium gas, the concentration of the clove oil was too high to process. Eugenol and beta- caryophyllene were expected to have a high percent composition as they are the two major components in clove oil. Before the percentages could be determined, a new total area from the graph needed to be calculated. This was because a portion of methylene chloride was added into the vial with the clove oil prior to being placed into the gas chromatography machine since very little oil remained after the I.R. and refractive index was done. In order to accurately calculate the percent composition for clove oil, the area of the methylene chloride peak needed to be subtracted by the total area to obtain a new area without the methylene chloride. Eugenol was found to be the major component at 61.31% composition and beta-caryophyllene was present at about 28.20%. The percent yield was calculated as 6.66% by dividing the weight of clove oil obtained by the amount of grams of clove powder