Question

- draw a flowchart showing the isolation of myristic acid from nutmeg

- Let’s say that you recovered 80% Trimyristin from 2 g of nutmeg you initially started with. If you competed the hydrolysis reaction to make myristic acid and glycerol, what would be your yield of myristic acid?

Answer 1

Warm the sand bath first, and then turn it down to about 30°C

Weigh ground nutmeg on the filter paper

Transfer it to a round-bottom flask with a funnel and add 3mL of tert-butyl methyl ether and 3 boiling chips, connect the black distiller connector to the flask, and the distillation column.

Boil it for 10 minutes. After allowing the solids to settle, pipette the solution into a centrifuge tube.

Pipette it into a 25mL Erlenmeyer flask, through a pressure filtration device, Then put 2 mL of tert-butyl methyl ether into the round bottom flask, heat it again for five minutes, and repeat the same procedure.

Apply a very gentle breeze with air inside the fume hood so that the solution evaporated and left behind crude trimyristin.

Stand it to dry a few minutes, and recrystallize it with acetone. Let it cool in the ice bath for 15 minutes before collecting the crystals via vacuum filtration. Dry the crystals and place them on a piece of filter paper. Use some amount of the crystals for the hydrolysis.

Add trimyristin crystals to a round bottom flask with 2mL of 95% ethanol and 1 boiling chip. Heat it for 45 minutes.

After boiling, recrystallize the remaining trimyristin. After the hydrolysis, Let the solution cool, pour 8mL of distilled water into a 50mL Erlenmeyer and pour the solution into another flask.

In the fume hood, Measure 2mL of concentrated HCl dropwise, stir it with a glass stirring rod. A precipitate of Myristic acid will form. Cool the beaker for 10 minutes in the ice bath, collect the precipitate via vacuum filtration, and left them overnight to dry