1. Would the Dean-Stark trap be valuable if the density of the ester product were greater than that of water?
2. In this experiment, you utilized a high molecular weight Dowex resin as an acid-catalyst for the esterification reaction which made isolating the product ester from the catalyst appreciably easy. Explain how would the product isolation be different if you had performed the reaction using H2SO4 as the acid catalyst?
Reagents/solvents available- CH2Cl2, 10% NaOH solution to neutralize H2SO4 at the end of the reaction. Presume you have access to other lab equipment such as Pasteur pipettes, rotavaps, test tubes etc.