The results of the experiment show that 1-methylcyclohexene is the major product of the reaction. This conclusion stems from an understanding that the area of the peaks corresponds to the percentage of the compound present in the mixture. The compound with the largest percentage is usually the most stable product. For E1 reactions, the most stable product is the product that has the greatest stabilization of the carbocation intermediate. Between 1-methycyclohexene and 3-methylcyclohexene, 1-methylcyclohexene stabilizes its carbocation better than 3-methycyclohexene. Additionally, using the retention also helps identify the two peaks. As mentioned earlier, compounds with longer retention times will have the higher boiling point and a similar…show more content… This differs from the amount of total possible products from the dehydration reaction. The reason that not all products are displayed is because the amount of methylenecyclohexane is so insignificant that the detector may not have detected it. This result corresponds with the literature, which states that methylenecyclohexane is a rarely seen product of dehydrating 2-methylcyclohexanol5. The percent yield of this experiment is 62.44%. This yield is an appropriate amount since some of the product was lost during the removal of the water layer and drying the product. There are other potential reasons that could have contributed to the percent yield. One could be the amount of time given to the distillate to condensate. During the procedure, the distillation process was ended after a few drops were observed, and the solution did not have chance to distill fully. Another potential area of the procedure that could be vulnerable to error could be insufficient heating of the distillate. The sand bath’s temperature kept fluctuating throughout the procedure, and it need to be adjusted multiple times. The inconsistent heating left the distillate sitting still at multiple points. This may have contributed to yield and the reaction’s ability to go to
