<span>Saturated sodium chloride
is used to transfer the product rather than water since it is not polar and
rinsing the product with water would revert any 4-methylcyclohexene back to
4-methylcyclohexanol in the Hickman Head and thus lowering the percent yield;
using water would shift the equilibrium towards the reactants. Also
sodium chloride removes the small amount of phosphoric acid and also a small
amount of water. If one were to add water, both 4-methylcyclohexene and
phosphoric acid are partially soluble making difficult to remove the water
later; sodium chloride makes the water less reactive so easier to remove by
making the aqueous later more polar.</span>
The saturated sodium chloride solution has a strong affinity for water molecules and there is the possibility of changing the saturated solution to a dilute solution in the presence of pure water. Because of these reasons, the saturated sodium chloride solution removes water molecules from the system to become a diluted solution. That is the reason why the saturated solution was used instead of pure water.
Mass is most concentrated in the nucelus of an atom. Therefore, if you are looking to find the area with the least mass, go outside of the nucelus. Points one and four are the furthest outside of the nucleus.
