Steam Distillation’s lab report. Biological & Biomedical Sciences

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Steam Distillation’s lab report
Abstract
Steam distillation is a process that is used to separate two or more substances, which are chemically inert, immiscible, and have high boiling points (Antic, 1). The method of steam distillation can be carried out either directly or indirectly. The primary purpose of this experiment is to separate eugenol from cloves. The reason behind choosing the steam distillation method is because it allows the separation of both volatile and non-volatile substances without the need of raising the temperatures above 100c(Antic,1). Oil of cloves is rich in eugenol, which is one of the classes of compounds known as phenols, which requires medium heat during extraction (Antic, 2).
Moreover, the method is the best for natural products that have essential oils since they can easily be decomposed at high temperatures. To purify the eugenol, I used diethyl ether solution since it is more soluble in eugenol than water (Antic, 2). At the start of the experiment, the mass of ground cloves was 302mg, and at the end of the test, I was able to isolate 55mg eugenol.
Discussion, observation, and conclusions
To isolate the eugenol from the cloves, I placed 302mg of ground cloves in a round bottom flask, added 3.0ml of distilled water and spin vane. I started heating the mixture at a rate of distillation (Antic,2). After a few minutes, I collected the distillate with a shorter pipet and transferred it to a culture tube. After obtaining 5ml of the distillate, I moved on with the extraction. I added 1ml of diethyl ether to the culture tube that contained the distillate and frequently shake (Antic,2). Then, I allowed the layer ...