Esters

lab 9.4  William philip
In this lab we synthesized esters.
we started off with a small test tube, we added 5ml of ethanol and then we added 6ml of acetic acid.
After we mixed the ethanol and the acetic acid we added 10 drops of sulfuric acid, the sulfuric acid acted as a catalyst to the reaction.
Then we set up a beaker full of water on a hot plate and waited for it to boil, after it had started to boil we clamped the test tube to a ring stand and lowered the test tube into the hot water, we put a small beaker over the test tube to keep it from overflowing into the water.
After about 10 minutes in the hot water we took out the test tube and put it in another beaker full of cold water to cool it off.
After the test tube had cooled off we diluted the ester with 30ml of water and then smelled it.
The ester smelled just like acetone in nail polish remover.

apparatus used: 5 ml ethanol
                                 6 ml glacial acetic acid
                                 10 drops of concentrated sulfuric acid
                                 1 ring stand
                                 1 hot plate
                                 1 thermometer
                                 1 test tube
                                 1 250 ml beaker
                                 1 50ml beaker