Week 8: Experiments Galore

This week was nothing exciting, but I did finish up most of the experiments I needed to do this summer, in order to write my final presentation for next week. 

On Monday, I started an Allyl Chloride experiment using sulfide as the reductant in order to show that sulfide can be used as a reductant for Allyl Chloride dechlorination (which has been proven in other journal articles), but it is not relevant on our time scale. Looking at the data over a weeks time, the Allyl Chloride concentrations did decrease, but so did the control of Allyl Chloride in DI water. This could mean that Allyl Chloride is unstable in water and sulfide is not the only cause of dechlorination, or my results were flawed. Therefore, I am redoing my experiment to test the consistency of the results.

I redid my Allyl Chloride with Zn64 experiment on Tuesday, as it was realized that I had the rotator at a lower setting than my other experiments. In order to compile and compare all my results, I need to have consistent methods, as well as rule out any reaction from mass transfer.

I also redid my TCP with Zn64 experiment in order to look at propene production as well as to look to see if any intermediates were showning. My kobs for the declorination of TCP was well lower than previous experiments, though it is still unclear why. Though, I did get very good mole balance which lends good proof to the idea that there are no side reactions other than that to Allyl Chloride, even if no Allyl Chloride appeared in the GC.

With all this data, I could then make my conclusion that the reaction pathway is TCP --> Allyl Chloride --> Propene, and there are little to no side reactions. Using STELLA, I then inputed the kobs for TCP and Allyl Chloride as well as the initial concentration of the new TCP fit. Graphing the data that came out of the program and plotting it with the new TCP + Propene data led to a very good fit. The program also showed that Allyl Chloride would not show up above the detection limit of the GC, and gives validation to why I  did not see Allyl Chloride in the experiments.

I also started a new 1,2-DCP experiment in which I will take fewer samples so that the septum doesn't leak hopefully and I might get better mole balance.

On Friday, I also started putting together my final presentation so that it will be ready by next week.