1. Matt was heating his methanol solvent in an E. flask on a hot plate to use fo

Question

1. Matt was heating his methanol solvent in an E. flask on a hot plate to use for recrystallization. The TA came by and noticed he didn’t have a stir stick or boiling chip in the flask and told him to use one, please. Matt dropped a stick in the flask and suddenly the liquid exploded out of the flask. Oops! Tell me why that happened. What should he have done instead?

2. Explain why the boiling point of your unknown liquid is at the point when the last little bubble escaping from the capillary tube appears to get sucked back into the tube. A good explanation will 1) explain where all those bubbles escaping were coming from and their likely composition, and 2) surely include the term vapor pressure. (Using Siwolobloff's Method)

Explanation / Answer

Ans 1 :

Boiling chips are unevenly shaped chips that are added into the boiling liquids , to help them boil calmly . These can be used during boiling of liquids in laboratorities and distillation procedures.

So when boiling chips are not used , any contamination of liquid by dust or even a stick if put into liquid while superheated , it can cause the liquid to flash boil and violently explode out of the flask, splattering all the reagents.

So Matt must have used the boiling chips instead.

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