Chapter 16 - Organic Analysis

Question 1

How do you test for an alcohol?

Answer 1

You can either try oxidising it with potassium dichromate which would turn it green, however this doesn’t work with tertiary alcohols and would also test positive for aldehydes. However you can add a piece of sodium which would cause effervescence

Question 2

How do you test for a carboxylic acid?

Answer 2

Sodium hydrogencarbonate - effervescence

Question 3

Aldehyde?

Answer 3

Fehling’s solution (brick red) or Tollen’s Reagent (silver mirror)

Question 4

Alkene?

Answer 4

Bromine water turns colourless

Question 5

What is infrared spectroscopy?

Answer 5

Where infrared radiation is released at an unknown molecule, and different groups absorb the radiation at different wavelengths, allowing you to find out which functional groups a molecule contains

Question 6

What is the fingerprint region?

Answer 6

The fingerprint region is the area below 1500 which is unique to each molecule and therefore can be looked up to determine the molecule when compared to other spectra of known compounds