Sciencemadness Discussion Board

Steam distillation of benzoic acid esters

Zock4 - 17-9-2016 at 11:59

Greetings from Germany,

I'm planing to synthesize n-propyl benzoate and of course my goal is to get a reasonably pure product. The ester and water aren't missable and thus a steam distillation should be possible, right ? I have a special piece of glassware designed for steam distillation so this shouldn't be a problem. But the problem is, that of course the temperature of the steam is not an indicator of what is actually coming over in this case, so impurities coul come along with the water/ester mixture. Do you guys have experience with steam distillation of high boiling esters ?