[fenti]

How do you perform a dehydration on an organic molecule to minus h20 without ruining the structure? Im new to chemistry.. id really appreciate some knowledge as im keen to learn some interesting things.


thanks

[Arkcon]

Kindly trouble yourself to read all of the Forum Rules{click}.  You agreed to follow them as a condition of signing up, and therefore they apply to you, no matter if you know them yet, or think that they shouldn't apply to you.

Point by point of topics you'll find in the forum rules, for your benefit, and the benefit of others who just don't read:

1).  We can't "teach you everything" there is to know about chemistry.  You have to learn, from books and classes the basic concepts, and then we'll help when you get stuck.  We can't write textbooks, one posting at a time.

2).  You have to use your existing knowledge to ask good, complete questions.  I don't know everything about organic chemistry, and I'm not a chemical engineer, but I still am able to offer the advice:  write a complete question that makes sense.  Its not enough to just casually say, "I'm new to chemistry."  It'd be like saying, I need to get across town, someone post a PDF for how to build a car, and hurry, my appointment's in 30 minutes.

To the point of your question:  Removing a water isn't an apt description.  Yes when we remove a hydroxyl group, it does come off as a water molecule.  But we don't say it that way.

3). Oh by the way, we don't give cookbook instructions on how to make illegal drugs.  I can't prove that's what you want to do.  But its very likely, given the reaction you want to perform, and that you have no underlying knowledge.

[silverz89]

In organic chemistry, "dehydration" is going to change the chemical structure of the molecule by way of hydroxyl group "leaving" the molecule.

 if your molecule is more soluble in a different type of solvent than water, you could look into performing a liquid/liquid separation.

dessication/ can also be a good way to dewater a compound. i would not recommend oven drying if you dont know about the temperature stability of your compound

 if your molecule has a sufficiently different vapor pressure from water and is stable at higher temp and pressure, you could look into a distillation method, but if the operating temperature and pressure you choose is not appropriate, you can cause unwanted dehydration or combustion (therefore altering the molecular structure and/or potentially hurting you).

 but i have to agree with the moderator that you really need to do more research (maybe in a university library) to find the appropriate methods and follow up analyses for the specific molecule/situation.. not all organic molecules respond in the same way to the same process!

be careful