Identification of an Unknown

Solid (Lab #1)

Jordan Monroe

Shahin Mohseni

Date Assigned: 08/25/2017

Date Submitted: 09/01/2017

X Shahin Mohseni

X Jordan Monroe
 Purpose:

To build teamwork skills alongside our partners and identify our unknown compound by
characterizing its melting point in the lab. Ultimately, the goal is to find another group who has the same
compound as our group.

Reagents/Results:

Unknown # MP (C) Color Powder/Crystal Shape of Crystals

#71 (Our 104.1 to White Powder N/A

Group) 105.3

Mixture of #61 103.2 to White Powder N/A

& #71 104.8

Calculations:
Average Melting Point: (Starting Point + Ending Point) / 2
Average for Unknown 71: (104.1 + 105.3) / 2 = 104.7

Post-Lab Questions:

1. The justification for choosing unknown 61 as a match to unknown 71 was that they had a similar
appearance of a fine white powder. Also the one-to-one mixture of the two chosen unknowns
resulted in a very similar (0.2 off) melting point.
2. Other methods of confirming the two unknowns (61 and 71) to be the same would be Infrared
Spectroscopy, Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy, and Refractive Index analysis.
3. After observing a melting point of 104.1 to 105.3, we believe the name of our compound is
o-Toluic Acid, which has a structure of C8H8O2, or

4. If the one-to-one mixture melts at the same temperature as the identical compounds, the two
compounds must be identical. If the one-to-one mixture between the two melting points of the
individual compounds, the mixture is clearly composed of two different compounds. This is
because the melting point of the mixture would be the average of the melting points of the
individual compounds.