[foxfourfive]

Simple question, how does one calculate the minimum amount of solvent needed for a reaction.

Example:
Solvent A is used in this reaction with compounds B and C.

500ml Solvent A is added to 1 mole of Compound B
1.05 moles of Compound C is dissolved in 500ml Solvent A, added to the first mixture and refluxed for 6 hours.

Now I want to use 3 moles of Compound B and 3.15 moles of Compound C, how much Solvent A should be added to each?

[Dan]

If you want to keep the reaction concentration the same, you can calculate the concentration in the first reaction, and then calculate the volume of solvent required to reach this concentration in the second reaction (a shortcut is scaling all reagents/solvents by the same factor).

In practice, the minimum solvent required may be significantly less; larger scale reactions are often run at higher concentration because very large volumes are more difficult to deal with. Determining the minimum solvent required is generally done experimentally.