Is aldol condensatiom product soluble in 95% ethanol , 2-butanone, and toluene?

Answer 1

It is impossible to know without knowing the specific aldol condensation product, although there are some trends that could be useful for determining which solvents an aldol condensation product is soluble in.

For 2-butanone:

Aldol condensation produces alpha,beta-unsaturated ketones, which are likely to be soluble in 2-butanone because of the shared ketone group.

For Ethanol:

This one is a bit trickier. Methyl vinyl ketone (the smallest alpha,beta-unsaturated ketone) is soluble in 95% ethanol, but Chalcone - a much larger alpha,beta-unsaturated ketone - is only slightly soluble in ethanol. Cyclohexanone - which is relatively small - is also soluble in ethanol.

The rule of thumb I would use for ethanol is: probably soluble unless the compound is exceptionally large (>12 carbons). Note that a very large compound may still be soluble in ethanol if it contains other groups that can undergo hydrogen bonding with ethanol (ie: carbonyl, hydroxyl, amino, fluoro, imino, etc.).

For Toluene:

Methyl vinyl ketone is soluble in benzene (according to PubChem). I couldn't find data on its solubility in toluene, but we should expect it to be similar. We should also expect that larger alpha,beta-unsaturated ketones - which are more non-polar - will be more soluble in a nonpolar solvent such as toluene. Therefore we should expect that most aldol condensation products will be soluble in toluene. Exceptions could include small molecules with lots of other polar functional groups.