I have a question. Approximately how long did you wait until the toluene and water was observed in the trap, and the reaction was complete? But thank you for this video though!
I guess you couldn't use a dean start apparatus to dry ethanol because the boiling point of ethanol is lower than that of toluene? Or could you fractionally distill the ethanol out of the toluene; Probably easier to dry the ethanol with calcium chloride.
Calcium chloride is not a suitable drying agent for ethanol since it is too reactive for it and forms liquid calcium complexes with ethanol (source: Armarego, Wilfred: "Purification of laboratory chemicals"). Use magnesium sulfate, calcium sulfate, potassium carbonate, calcium oxide, barium oxide or molecular sieves instead. Use metallic magnesium to remove traces of water from ethanol.
Excuse me sir, but THEN how do you get the toluene out of the product? Not only do I want the WATER out of my chemical I do NOT want toluene left in it either. Can we get the full 75 ml toluene out?
