School of Chemical Sciences

KUT305 – ANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY PRACTICAL I

Name: _______________________________________ Matric No.: ______________

Practical Session: Mon/Tue/Wed/Thurs Time: ___________________

Semester: _______ of 20___/20___

Lecturer in-Charge: ______________________________ GA: ____________________

Experiment 3
INFRARED SPECTROSCOPY

Objectives:

i. To perform a quantitative determination of m-xylene and p-xylene in a mixture of xylene

isomers.

Results: (Please attach all IR spectra obtained and graphs)

Unknown given :

A. Infrared absorption peaks for xylene isomers (list peak frequencies to distinguish
each isomer).
Isomers Absorption Peak Frequencies, cm-1
o-xylene
m-xylene
p-xylene

B. Absorbance (log PO/P) for Xylene Isomers

I. o-Xylene Isomer
Solutions % of o-Xylene PO P log PO/P
I
II
III
IV
Unknown

1
 II. m-Xylene Isomer
Solutions % of m -Xylene PO P log PO/P
I
II
III
IV
Unknown

III. p-Xylene Isomer

Solutions % of p-Xylene PO P log PO/P
I
II
III
IV
Unknown

C. Calibration Curves Data

log(PO/P)meta log (PO/P)para
Solutions % of m-Xylene % of p-Xylene
log(PO/P)ortho log
I (PO/P)ortho
II
III
IV
Unknown

I. Calibration Curve log(PO/P)meta against % m-xylene.

log(PO/P)ortho

From linear regression analysis (using only data points on linear portion of the curve):
Slope : _________________________
Intercept : ___________________________
Correlation coefficient : _________________________
Percentage of m-xylene in the unknown : __________________________

Show your calculation:

2
 II. Calibration Curve log (PO/P)para against % p-xylene.
log (PO/P)ortho

From linear regression analysis (using only data points on linear portion of the curve):
Slope : _________________________
Intercept : ___________________________
Correlation coefficient : _________________________
Percentage of p-xylene in the unknown : ________________________

Show your calculation:

Questions:

1. How is the path length of an infrared cell measured?

2. Why is o-xylene used as an internal standard in this experiment?

3
IR Spectra

 o-Xylene

 m-Xylene

p-Xylene