Formation of Nylon Lab Manual.

Safety

** Adipoyl chloride reacts very rapidly with water and moisture to yield
hydrochloric acid. Since there's usually moisture on skin and in the air,
adipoyl chloride presents similar hazards to hydrochloric acid: it is corrosive
and may cause serious burns to the skin or eyes.

**Hexamethylenediamine is corrosive and can cause burns. It's harmful if

ingested or inhaled. May cause burns in contact with skin or eyes. Eye, skin
and respiratory irritant. Please rinse any affected area immediately with
copious amounts of water.

Always use gloves and a hood when working with the chemicals mentioned
above.

 Wear safety glasses!

 Pour all waste solutions into the containers provided.
 Return unknown polymers to your instructor.

Materials and Equipment

ATR-FTIR Spectrum One Spectrometer

For Part 1: Synthesis of Nylon 6.6

 2.5% (v/v) solution of adipoyl chloride [C6H8Cl2O2] in heptane [C7H16] (2.5%

v/v means 2.5 mL in a total of 100 mL) NOTE: pure adipoyl chloride has a
density of 1.25 g/mL.
 2% (w/v) aqueous solution of hexamethylenediamine [C6H16N2] also containing
NaOH (2% w/v means 2g in a total of 100 mL)
 50% (v/v) ethanol in water solution

For Part 2: Identification of Unknown Polymers

 Unknown polymers 1, 2, 3, and 4

Instructions

Students will work individually unless otherwise specified by your instructor.

Wear gloves when working with chemicals.

Part 1: Synthesis of Nylon 6.6 Rope

1. Put on gloves.
2. Pour 10 mL of a 2% (w/v) aqueous solution of hexamethylenediamine into a
150 mL beaker. 
3. Using a different graduated cylinder, measure 10 mL of a 2.5% (v/v) solution
of adipoyl chloride in heptane. Slowly pour it on top of the
hexamethylenediamine solution.
4. With the aid of tweezers pull up on the film that forms at the interface between
the aqueous and organic layers slowly and coil it around a glass rod held
horizontally about 5 inches above the beaker. You may have a lump of nylon to
start with. That's ok. If the lump is large, you may want to transfer it to a new
beaker that will then become your collection beaker. If you get liquid bubbles,
do not squeeze them, as they may spray liquid. 
5. With your fingers spin the glass rod to collect the nylon that keeps continuously
forming at the interface as can be seen in Figure 3 below.
Figure 3: Setup for creating nylon 6.6 rope

5. Slide the nylon rope off your glass rod and into your collection beaker. In the
beaker, wash the nylon rope with ~25mL water. Use your glass stirrring rod to
break any bubbles in your rope. Lift your nylon and drain the water into a waste
beaker. Wash the nylon rope again, this time with ~25mL of a 50% solution of
ethanol in water. (Why do we use ethanol here?) Drain. You may now remove
your gloves.
6. Dry your polymer with ~4 paper towels. Press the nylon firmly between the
paper towels until there are no remaining bubbles. Continue pressing until the
paper comes away completely dry. Leave your nylon to dry on a test tube rack
in a hood for at least an hour.
7. When the nylon is dry and no longer leaving wet spots on your paper towels, you can
obtain its IR spectrum. 
8. Before you clean up, look back at your reaction beaker and note observations.
Has more nylon formed?
9. Before you leave lab, weigh your nylon 6.6 and obtain an FTIR spectrum of it.