How would you draw a flow sheet illustrating the seperation and purification of the individual components of a mixture of bezoic acid, aniline, napthalene and p-chlorophenol?

1 Answer
Nov 13, 2017

Here's a chart similar to the one you need.

Explanation:

It uses a mixture of benzoic acid, aniline, anthracene, and phenol.

www.thevespiary.org

You are separating a base, a neutral compound, a medium strength acid, and a very weak acid.

It is based the following principles:

  1. The aniline is basic, so it is removed by #"HCl"# and then recovered.

  2. Benzoic acid is a much stronger acid than phenol. Both react with #"NaOH"#, but only benzoic acid is acidic enough to react with the weaker base #"NaHCO"_3#. The benzoic acid is removed first with #"NaHCO"_3#, followed by removal of the phenol with #"NaOH"#.

  3. Finally, the neutral aromatic hydrocarbon is removed by boiling off the solvent.

If required, each compound can then be purified by the appropriate methods.