Question

tell how each of the following experimental errors will affect your experimental results ( yield,purity,or both) and explain why.a)you failed to dry the product completely.b) you used enough water to recrystallize phenacetin, but your unknown was acetanilide.c)inexperiment 2, you didn't extract all of the aspirin from the dichloromethane solution.

Answer 1

a) if you didn't dry the product you will weigh it and receive an incorrect weight. Therefore, your percent yield will not be an accurate representation ofyour actual yield. (Think of it as water weight)

b) If it takes more water to recrystallize acetanilide than phenacetin, then you would not have recrystallized as much of your unknown as you could've.This results in a lower percent yield.

c) I don't know what experiment 2 is, but if you're trying to get aspirin and you did not extract it all from the dichloromethane solution, then you willhave a lower percent yield. However if you are trying to obtain a dichloromethane solution with NO aspirin and you did not extract all the aspirin, thenyour product will not be as pure as it could theoretically be.