Adityax26 Posted November 30, 2017 Report Share Posted November 30, 2017 Hey all, For the EE I was planning to investigate how the solubility of various alcohols differs in water (chemistry). I have found a lot of information on this, however, am not quite sure if this is a good RQ to use for the EE, and how to relate it to some real-life scenario. Could you suggest to me if this is a good RQ or any other similar RQ's I could investigate in EE about alcohols or organic chemistry in general? I'm really searching for somethign that involves a relatively simple experiment, but a lot to write about. Thanks in advance !! I really appreciate it! Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adityax26 Posted November 30, 2017 Author Report Share Posted November 30, 2017 Bump. Someone help! Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
kw0573 Posted December 1, 2017 Report Share Posted December 1, 2017 Generally on organic chemistry you would want to do a reaction, since you want to know EE topics for organic chemistry in general. As for solubility, I'm not sure if it's a good topic but it is tricky to write coherently about physical property trends. So there are drawbacks of property-based topics being easier to conduct but harder to explain. Very likely that these solubility data are well tabulated and you can use tables as a reference or as additional data if you do not have every alcohol. These data may determine what units your experiments should output and hence the design process. There are also minor obstacles such as precisely measuring the solubility (what glassware is useful to separate different phases of liquid?). As in most cases, if you can get everything to work out fine and the plan is carefully well thought out, then it's a good topic. 1 Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Honkhonk Posted December 1, 2017 Report Share Posted December 1, 2017 I agree...the topic has potential, but I'm not quite sure if you have enough to write 4000 words on...and it would be hard to find personal engagement with that (although if it came down to it I'm sure you could). 1 Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adityax26 Posted December 1, 2017 Author Report Share Posted December 1, 2017 9 hours ago, kw0573 said: Generally on organic chemistry you would want to do a reaction, since you want to know EE topics for organic chemistry in general. As for solubility, I'm not sure if it's a good topic but it is tricky to write coherently about physical property trends. So there are drawbacks of property-based topics being easier to conduct but harder to explain. Very likely that these solubility data are well tabulated and you can use tables as a reference or as additional data if you do not have every alcohol. These data may determine what units your experiments should output and hence the design process. There are also minor obstacles such as precisely measuring the solubility (what glassware is useful to separate different phases of liquid?). As in most cases, if you can get everything to work out fine and the plan is carefully well thought out, then it's a good topic. 1 hour ago, Honkhonk said: I agree...the topic has potential, but I'm not quite sure if you have enough to write 4000 words on...and it would be hard to find personal engagement with that (although if it came down to it I'm sure you could). Hey thanks a lot for the input guys! And yeah, I was planning to investigate either the effect of different alcohols (i.e. ethanol, methanol, etc.) acting as solvents on the solubility of fatty acids (with the use of iodine numbers), or to investigate the effect of different fatty acids on their solubility in one particular alcohol (i.e. ethanol) (also using iodine numbers). Which investigation do you guys think is more feasible and I can gather more information on? I also found some very good links that explain in detail on how the length of the hydrocarbon chain of an alcohol effects its solubility in water (where the alcohols are the solute and water the solvent), but I'm not quite sure how I could relate this to my investigation where the alcohol acts a solvent for the fatty acid... Any opinions? Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
kw0573 Posted December 2, 2017 Report Share Posted December 2, 2017 I am not sure if iodine number and degree of unsaturation are related to solubility. You should do some background research in case you look for a relationship that's not there. I don't really recommend doing like a physical property type of experiment if you do not know much of the background theory. Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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