Matt Prater

Lab #2
Quantitative NMR

NMR instruments can be used to find the relative concentrations of different species in a
solution. This is particularly useful for analyzing organic solvents to find the ratio of
concentrations within the mixture. For this particular experiment, we had unknown #1 which was
a mixture of methanol and tert-butanol; and unknown #5 that consisted of ethanol and methanol.
Unknown #1 had a molar ratio of 2.59 : 1.00 (meOH : t-buOH) and mass percents of 52.8%
methanol and 47.2% tert-butanol. Unknown #5 had a molar ratio of 2.46 : 1.00 (etOH : meOH)
and mass percents of 77.6 % ethanol and 22.4% methanol. The NMR has the ability to produce a
very high accuracy in molar ratios. Table 1 summarizes the Data.
Table 1.
unkno
wn 1
methla
tnol
buOH
Molar Ratio
2.59
1
mass
%
52.8
47.2

unkno
wn 2

EtOH
MeOH
2.46
1
77.6

22.4