Question

5. What is the advantage of extracting the Eugenol with methylene chloride Three ( 3) times, but not one time. Explain.

Answer 1

The advantage of extracting the Eugenol with methylene chloride 3 times is to recover the maximum Eugenol from the aqueous layer, i.e. to get the maximum yield of Eugenol.

The above observation can be explained by using the following equation:

(Final mass of Eugenol)_{aqueous layer} = {V2/(V2 + K*V1)}ⁿ * (Initial mass of Eugenol)_{aqueous layer}

Where V2 is the volume of water

V1 is the volume of methylene chloride

K is the partition coefficient of Eugenol between water and methylene chloride'

'n' is no. of extractions

If the value of n = 3, then the fraction will be very low, which multiplied by the initial mass of Eugenol will also be very low, i.e. the final mass Eugenol in the aqueous layer will be very low.

As a result, the mass of Eugenol extracted into the methylene chloride is very high.

Hence, you need to perform 3 extractions for extracting a compound.