How to obtain pure alcohol from mixture of alcohol & carbonyl? (Grignard experiment) [closed]








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If one discovers that after finishing up a Grignard reaction that their alcohol product has been contaminated with the carbonyl starting material, how could they separate the alcohol from the carbonyl compound to obtain a purified alcohol product?


I was thinking that they could recrystallize the contaminated product using an alcohol as a solvent, but is there a better option for separating these two compounds?




I rather doubt that there is a better option **in general**. Other possible methods are 


* distillation  

To give an example, acetone has a boiling point of 56 °C, while *tert*-butanol boils at 82 °C.
* column chromatography on silica


But in many cases, your suggestion to separate the compounds by crystallization is a good idea. This is in particular true when your product has a high boiling point and/or you have to purify large amounts of substance.


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