[Katy]

In my lab, we did the hydration of cyclohexene. I can't figure out the answer to this question:

Why does the product distill at 97C if the boiling points of cyclohexene and cyclohexanol are 83C and 161C, respectively?


Is the product not pure cyclohexanol? Is it a mixture of cyclohexene and cyclohexanol? Is it because we used excess water, and cyclohexanol is mixed with water? I just can't come up with an explanation that makes sense other than the product being a mixture of cyclohexene and cyclohexanol, and I'm not sure that that's right.

[Bakegaku]

I think that I would agree with your answer.  It's quite likely that the reaction was incomplete and left some cyclohexene (and water, potentially) which brought up the boiling point.