What possible reasons could be advanced that Jim recovered #82*g# of product that yielded #95*g#?

Question

Ellie Andrews · Accepted Answer

Clearly, Jim is a duffer in the lab.

In every chemical reaction ever performed, mass is conserved. If you start with #100*g# of reactants, at most you can get #100*g# of product. In practice you are not even going to get that. Reactions seldom proceed with #100%# yield, and even if they do, some losses are going to occur on handling, i.e. getting your product out of the reaction vessel, purifying it, getting it into a tared bottle; mass loss occurs down the line. Here, Jim lost #(95-82)=13*g#. Jim was apparently a bit lax in scraping his product out of the reaction vessel; or maybe it didn't crystallize out of solution completely. If the product were pure, the loss may be acceptable.

Henry Antrim · Answer

undefined Possible reasons for Jim recovering 82g of product from a reaction that theoretically yields 95g could include incomplete reaction, side reactions, loss during isolation, or experimental error. These factors may lead to a lower actual yield compared to the theoretical yield.