The final benzopinacolone product was filtered and analyzed by FT-IR Figure 4. The presence of a ketone stretch at 1700 cm-1 and the absence of the hydroxyl stretch at 3500 cm-1 in the benzopinacolone spectra indicated the successful conversion of benzopinacol to benzopinacolone. The FT-IR of the final product was also found to be consistent with the reported literature spectra, Figure 5.[2] This conversion has been proposed to occur through the protonation of a hydroxyl group, resulting in the formation of water as a good leaving group, Scheme 2. Elimination of water from 5 produced a tertiary carbocation intermediate, 6 in Scheme 2. Formation of the final benzopinacolone, 7, occurred via migration of a phenyl group to give a more stable carbocation followed by deprotonation of the carbonyl.[3]