The goal of the soil project was to separate, purify, identify and quantify the four compounds that were present in an unknown soil sample. We were told that two of the compounds were organic and the other two were inorganic. We were given a list of all possible compounds, which we examined and used to create a procedure based on techniques we studied and practiced throughout the course that would allow us to perform both qualitative and quantitative analyses of our soil sample. We started our separation using vacuum filtration, first with ethyl acetate, and then water. This gave us aqueous solutions of both the organic and inorganic compounds. We used various spectroscopies such as Thin Layer Chromatography (TLC) to compare polarities, infrared spectroscopy (IR) to identify functional groups present. The results from these tests gave us clues about which organic compounds were present in our unknown soil sample. To confirm these clues we ran gas chromatography mass spectrometry (GCMS) and Melting Point test. To quantify our organic samples we simply evaporated the solvent and measured the mass of the dry compound that was left. To identify our inorganic compounds we used the same ion tests that we used in the Ion-exchange chromatography experiment to test which metal ions were present and compared our UV-Vis spectra to the literature spectra for our suspected compounds. To quantify the amount of each inorganic compound present we used Beer's Law calibration graphs. Based off the results from these analyses we determined our sample of Unknown 37 to be composed of:.
13.397% m-nitroaniline.
1.935% Naphthalene.
21.67% NiCl2.
24.00% CoCl2.
Design and Discussion of the Experimental Procedures.
Separation of Organics from Inorganics.
We first measured an amount of soil to be tested for different compounds. In order to separate the organics, inorganics, and insoluble, we first washed the soil with ethyl acetate to extract the organic compounds.