Friedel-Crafts Acylation of Ferrocene Acetylferrocene

Prelab Exercise How many possible isomers could exist for diacetylferrocene  

Acetylferrocene and ferrocene (both highly colored) are easily separated by column chromatography. See Chapter 10. 

Both acetic anhydride and sulfuric acid are corrosive to tissue handle both with care and wipe up any spills immediately 

Analyze your product by thin-layer chromatography. Dissolve very small samples of pure ferrocene, the crude reaction mixture, and recrystallized acetylferrocene, each in a few drops of toluene spot the three solutions with microcapillaries on silica gel plates and develop the chromatogram with 30 1 toluene-absolute ethanol. Visualize the spots under a uv lamp if the silica gel has a fluorescent indicator or by adsorption of iodine vapor. Do you detect unreacted ferrocene in the reaction mixture and/or a spot that might be attributed to diacetylferrocene  

Cleaning Up The reaction mixture filtrate can be flushed down the drain. 

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