Sodium Borohydride Reduction Of Camphor Lab Report

The objective of this experiment was to study the stereochemistry of the borohydride reduction of camphor. Sodium Borohydride is a reducing agent that is able to reduce ketones and aldehydes. In this case, camphor, which contains a ketone, was reduced with sodium borohydride. Reduction of a carbonyl with sodium borohydride occurs when the hydride ion adds to the carbonyl carbon, breaking the C=O bond and creating a new C-H bond. When the reduction occurs, the hydride transfer will occur on the less hindered side of the carbonyl group. This addition will usually create the more hindered alcohol but will generally create a mixture of two possible alcohols, the endo product and the exo product. In this case, the exo product will be the major product, which would be isoborneol and the endo product will be the minor product, which would be borneol. …show more content…
Next, 1g of sodium borohydride was carefully added to the solution and the mixture was allowed to stand for 10 minutes. After the 10 minutes, the solution mixture was gently heated to a boil, once boiling of the mixture had been achieved, it was allowed to cool. Next, the mixture was poured into 100mL of an ice-water mixture and them was filtrated in a Büchner funnel. The product was then recrystallized from an ethanol-water mixture. The solution was allowed to cool and crystals began to form. The product was left to dry for a week and then the boiling point and an IR spectrum were