How do you differentiate ethylene glycol, and ethanol based on their IR spectra?

1 Answer
Dec 2, 2017

That would be a hard thing to do....

Explanation:

IR spectroscopy is a so-called sporting technique of analysis that relies on inference, and supposition, unlike a non-sporting technique of analysis such as #""^1H# #"NMR spectroscopy"# that would tell you the difference #"pdq"#.

You could probably search on the web for the IR spectra of each substance....

commons.wikimedia.org
#"IR spectrum of ethanol"#

google.com

#"IR spectrum of ethylene glycol"#

And even with the spectra before you, they are hardly discriminating....

On the other hand, were you presented with the solution #""^1H# #"NMR spectrum"# of each substance, you could immediately differentiate between the two.