Synthesis Of Aspirin

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Creating and Testing Aspirin
Introduction
Aspirin is created when salicylic acid and acetic anhydride react together (French et al. 82). However, phosphoric acid is needed as a catalyst, and acetic acid is released as a by-product (French et al. 82). The reaction of aspirin is as shown below: Figure 1. Structures Found in Aspirin Synthesis (French et al. 82
The limiting reagent controls how much product can be produced (French et al. 83). The reagent that is the first to be completely used is the limiting reagent, and by using calculations to discover which reagent produces the smallest amount of the product (French et al. 83).
Theoretical yield is the maximum amount of product that can be produced during a reaction (French et al. 83). The numbers used to find theoretical yield must be those of the limiting reagent (French et al. 83). Because parts of the material used are inevitably lost during experiments, the actual yield will be smaller than the theoretical yield (French et al. 83). To test the efficiency of the reaction, calculate the percent yield as shown below:
% yield= (actual yield)/(theoretical yield) ×100 …show more content…

83) Recrystallization helps to purify products and remove contaminants (French et al. 83). To do this, the product is dissolved in a hot substance and then reforms as crystals when the substance cools; the crystals are the filtered out of the solution so that they are separated from any impurities dissolved in the substance (French et al. 83). The proper solvent used for recrystallization should not react with the desired product (French et al. 84). Instead, it should dissolve the desired product at warm temperatures, but not dissolve it at cool temperatures (French et al.

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