[crichtonracing]

This hasn't been discussed anywhere in my text and it's pretty vague. Could someone give me some guidance.

You have two mystery substances. One is a colourless liquid and the other is a white solid. You know that the compounds are either an alcohol or a short-chained or long chained carboxylic acid. Describe two tests that you could perform to identify each substance.

[cliverlong]

This hasn't been discussed anywhere in my text and it's pretty vague. Could someone give me some guidance.

You have two mystery substances. One is a colourless liquid and the other is a white solid. You know that the compounds are either an alcohol or a short-chained or long chained carboxylic acid. Describe two tests that you could perform to identify each substance.

Try the text

"organic functional group tests"

in Google and see where that leads


Clive

[Arkcon]

Oh, it's in your text alright, there should be typical reactions for alcohols, often organized in the back of the chapter on alcohols, if the book's index is failing you.  If I wanted to know if I had a carboxylic acid, at least a short chain one, there is a very basic chemical test I'd try.

[crichtonracing]

some sort of solubility test?

[crichtonracing]

Ok I know one for sure. A litmus paper test:

Litmus turns red: water soluble acidic compound
Litmus turns blue: water soluble basic compound
Litmus neutral: water soluble general compound or insoluble compound

[Arkcon]

You can think of no basic, chem 101 test to see if you have a carboxylic acid?  The solid is possibly something like citric acid, or acetic acid or ascorbic acid, do they have any properties in common?

*[EDIT]*

There you go, see, the problem is simpler than you thought.