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Ideas for Discovery Activities for the TOPS Esterification Lab
 
ALTERNATIVE TO THE ESTERIFICATION LABORATORY
DISCOVERY APPROACH
PRE-LAB SCENARIO
     The following scenario may be used to introduce the laboratory experience to the class prior to explaining the esterification lab procedures. The teacher will need to be careful not to refer to the product as "banana oil" and be sure that any references to banana oil as such are whited out in the instructions. The name of the local community may be used in place of "San Gabriel."

     The teacher should explain the procedures involved in the lab as usual and explain the various uses of the gas chromatograph for separating mixtures and identifying constituents.  The imitation should have a similar retention time to the expensive fragrance.

SAN GABRIEL CHEMICALS vs. QUAGMIRE INDUSTRIES
    You are the Chief Chemist for San Gabriel Chemical. It has been a bad quarter and the company is facing its third straight year of poor profits.  The vice-president of your company has just been back east for his 25th year college reunion and has run into an old friend who is a lawyer for Quagmire Industries.  The friend tells your VP that one of Quagmire's affiliate companies has a patent pending on a process which can be used to make a perfume similar to Christian Dior's Diorissimo, but from inexpensive starting materials, isoamyl alcohol and acetic acid. Quagmire is known for turning a fast buck on imposter fragrances (making an inexpensive imitation of an expensive perfume and marketing it under similar packaging at a fraction of the regular price.)  The pending patent was for a Lily of the Valley fragrance similar to Christian Dior's Diorissimo. However, recently Quagmire has decided to divest itself of the small company and sell off its pending patent on the process. On his return, your VP discussed the possibility of purchasing the patent rights and marketing the perfume with your management staff and Board of Directors. They think they can purchase the patent for half a million, and gross 10 million a year manufacturing and marketing the fragrance.

    A board member has asked your opinion on the patent. After reading the patent application you realize that the process is an esterification reaction, a common process used to produce many perfume fragrances.  However, the reacting materials appear to be of low molecular weight and may be too volatile to be useful as a perfume.  Before they make a decision to purchase the patent, management has asked you to perform a pilot test on the process to see if indeed the product is similar to the expensive perfume.

    See the attached procedure to perform your experiment. You need to confirm that the product could pass for the Lily of the Valley fragrance on the open market. As part of your evaluation you will need to make a gas chromatogram of your product for positive identification. A chromatogram of the expensive perfume is at your disposal to use for comparison.

POST-LAB QUESTIONS/EXTENDED ACTIVITIES

1. Prepare a report to management supporting your decision to accept or decline the offer to buy the process. Be sure to include all supporting data.

2. After completing the esterification reaction you called your boss to advise her of the results you obtained and found out that management decided to go ahead with the purchase without waiting for your results because they feared they would lose the option to buy.  Suggest some other uses for the product of the reaction.

3. Explain how you could help a person who lacked olfactory sensory receptors to differentiate between different scents.