AIM

: to determine the melting points of the following compounds; Benzoic acid, Acetanilide, Salicyclic acid and the melting point of an unknown substance and identify it from the list of the given of possibilities.

THEORY: The property of an organic compound which is most frequently determine as a

criterion of purity is the melting point. This is so because a pure compound usually has a sharp melting point (melting point range of approximately 10C). On the other hand, an impure substance has an indefinite melting point, and will therefore melt slowly and indecisively over a range of several degrees. The possibilities revealed by a melting point determination may be summarized as followa: 1. SHARP MELTING POINT This is almost invariably caused by a pure substance There is a negligible possibility of a mixture giving such a melting point

2. INDIFINIFTE MELTING POINT This is caused by an impure substance One sometime finds that even though a substance is pure, on warming it undergoes slight thermal decomposition before the melting point is reached. The decomposition products then act as impurities and alter the melting point. The melting point is then usually lowered and shows a lager range.

METHOD:
The open end of a thin-walled capillary tubing was pressed gently into a pulverized sample of the crystalline material The height of the column of the crystals were not allowed to exceed 2mm The thin-walled capillaries were inserted in a heating device A thermometer was inserted in the heating device to determine the temperature The temperature at which the substance began to liquefy and the one at which it was completely a liquid was recorded as the melting point range.

RESULTS
The melting points of the compounds were found to be Compound A: 1450C 1600C Compound B: 1220C -1260C Compound C: 110OC- 1130C Compound D: 800C 1100C MELTING POINT RANGES Compound A: 1450C 1600C= 150C Compound B: 1220C -1260C= 40C Compound C: 110OC- 1130C= 30C Compound D: 800C 1100C=300C

DISCUSSION
The melting point of compound A was found to be 1450C. Based on the given melting points of the compounds it is safe, though not frankly, to confirm that compound A is salicyclic acid. This is because the only value in the given melting points that is close to the one of compound A is that of salicyclic acid. The melting point of salicyclic acid is 1570C. The error of not getting the approximate melting point of this compound could be explained by many reasons; one of which could be that the compound was contaminated. This can also be due to the fact that the crystals of this compound were loosely packed at the end of the thin-walledcapillary. The other reason that might have lead to this terrible error could be that the heating switch was not switched off when the temperature reached 1000C and thus it continued to heat rapidly and this is as result of negligence by the students. Based on our results found, the melting range of this compound was found to be 150C. It can be confirmed that the melting point of this compound is indefininte melting point. This can be concluded by the fact that the melting poin was lowered and thus causing a larger range. The melting point of compound B was found to be 1220C. This corresponds to the melting point of benzoic acid (1210C), though not precisely, and thus it can be concluded that compound B was benzoic acid. Not getting the exact melting point of this compound could be caused by the

fact that the crystals were tightly packed at the end of the thin-walled capillary causing the compound to take longer to liquefy than it would normally do. The other reason could be of that of misreading the thermometer. The melting range was found to be 40C. This range is neither large nor small (but not approximately 10C) therefore we can say that benzoic acid is an impure substance. The melting point of compound C was found to be 1100C. This corresponds with the melting point of acetanilide which is 1130C. The 20C difference between the measured melting point and the true melting point could be of the result that the compound was contaminated. The other reason could be that the compound was wetted by the learner when blowing the crystals trying to pack them at the end of the thin-walled capillary thus contaminating the compound. The melting range of acetanilide was found to be 30C. If the measured melting point was exactly the true melting point of acetanilide, the melting range would have lied somewhere between 10C confirming that acetanilide is a pure substance, however this is not a clever conclusion to make based on our experiment.