Purification of Benzoic Acid by Sublimation

Introduction `Sublimation is the process by which a substance undergoes conversion from the solid phase to the gas phase, without going through the liquid phase. The transition from the solid to the gaseous state requires an intermediate liquid state. A number of solids can simply change into vapors; these vapors can sublime, meaning that vapors form a solid without going through the liquid state. Sublimation is a technique used by chemists to purify compounds. Sublimation is helpful in purifying some solids like menthol, naphthalene, etc. Benzoic acid was first obtained by sublimation from gum benzoin. This is also known as flowers of benzoin. Benzoic acid in its basic form is called impure benzoic acid. A pure benzoic acid can be obtained from recrystallization and sublimation but in this test, well focus on sublimation.

Procedure The materials for this experiment are evaporating dish, watch glass, perforated filter paper, wire gauze, hot plate, tissue paper and triple beam balance. First, place 5 grams of impure benzoic acid in an evaporating dish then cover it with a perforated filter paper. Next place an inverted pre-weighted watch glass on the top of the filter paper then heat the dish using a hot plate. Cool the top of the watch glass with a tissue paper kept moist with water then continue heating for 10-15 minutes until the moist of the sample has vaporized. Stop heating and cool the set-up. Invert the pre-weighted watch glass carefully and collect the sublimate including the crystals adhering to the perforated filter paper and weigh it. Calculate the percentage recovery.

Benzoic acid crystals

Observations The results in the experiments are given here:

Weight of the impure benzoic acid:

Weight of the watch glass + sublimate:
Percentage Recovery:

5g

29.6g

Percentage recovery

12%

The sublimate formed came from the cooled surface of the pre-weighted watch glass after heating it to 10-15 minutes. The percentage recovery was obtained through the ratio between the weight of the sublimate and the weight of impure benzoic acid then multiplied by 100. The weight of the sublimate is 0.6g and the weight of the impure benzoic acid is 5g. So from the formula, we got the percentage recovery which is 12%. Conclusion I therefore conclude that when 5g of benzoic acid undergo sublimation process, we can obtain 0.6g of sublimate and the percentage recovery shows that 12% of the pure substance is produced from impure benzoic acid. Recommendations For the future researchers, I recommend that the substance you are going to use in the sublimation process should have the property to be sublimated. Also, the vapor pressure of the substance must be different from the vapor pressure of the impurities otherwise both substances will be transported into the gas phase in almost equal amounts and you will not achieve a good purification.

References: 1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sublimation_(phase_transition) 2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benzoic_acid 3. http://www.scribd.com/doc/78148646/Purification-of-Benzoic-Acid-bySublimation-And