Lab report on E2 substitution on alkyl halides.

Alkenes by Elimination Kyle Peterson Chem. 243a Matt Judd, Sec. 25 Date Performed: 11/12/03 Abstract: The objective of this experiment is to successfully perform a dehydration of a 2-butanol and a dehydrohalogenation of 2-bromobutane to form the products 1-butene, trans-2-butene, and cis-2-butene. It was found that a dehydration of 2-butanol yielded 4.6% 1-butene, 67.3% trans-2-butene, and 28.1% cis-2-butene, and a dehydrohalogenation of 2-bromobutane yielded 19.1% 1-butene, 69.9% trans-2-butene, and 11.0% cis-2-butene. Backround: Gas Chromatography separates organic samples …

… product could have been air (first 8mL is air in the tube). This would cause the gas chromatographer to give a reading of air as one of the components. A second error could have happened if the tubing was not removed from the water bath before cooling the reaction flask. This would could cause water to be sucked up into the reaction vessel, which contains concentrated acids which would then react with the water.