Thread: prepration of the epoxy-1,2-cyclohexan

hello everyone
i have to prepare an epoxyde from the bromhydrin so i have to put 50ml of NaOH(5M) on the bromhydrine so then i will heat the mix at 60°C for 30 minutes so why i have to heat?
then i cool the mix and put 3 times 10 ml of ether (sépration) ( seprate what from what?),, what the ether should do ? so we had two phases, organic phase and aqueous phase, so i think in the organic one we have the epoxyde, right?
but then we have to wash the organic phase with a solution saturated of NaCl, why?
and dry with Na2SO4, why?
sorry for all these questions, i couldn't understand all these things
thank you so much

thank you so much PhDemon for your help , just one last question,, in the aqueous phase i will have just water , Na+ and Br-? so in the organic phase i have the epoxyde with the ether, right?

thank you so much yoy helped me alot ,, have a nice day

Originally Posted by PhDemon

This is an educated guess (and may be wrong) but washing the organic phase with salt solution could be to remove any of your starting material still in the sample.

I don't think this is correct. I'm also not sure, but I think the salt: (1) decreases the amount of water dissolved in the ether, (2) decreases the amount of ether dissolved in the water, and (3) increases the density of the lower (aqueous) layer so as to promote better separation of the layers.