NeonBlack Posted July 10, 2005 Share Posted July 10, 2005 I have read a few threads where people say that making acetyl salicylic acid is easy enough to do in the first week of an o-chem lab. I have little experience in organic and I was wondering how hard it is to get salicylic acid from aspirin. Any help and/or suggestions for other easy o-chem experiments is appreciated! -Justin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
latentheat Posted July 10, 2005 Share Posted July 10, 2005 It's easy. Extract the acetylsalicylic acid from Bayer pills with a suitable organic solvent and then you will have reasonably pure acetylsalicylic acid. Add the acetylsalicylic acid to sodium hydroxide solution and heat it for a few minutes. Cool the solution, then add dilute hydrochloric acid to preciptate salicylic acid. Filter the salicylic acid. That's the method I used, it was suggested by someone in another thread. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NeonBlack Posted July 10, 2005 Author Share Posted July 10, 2005 Thanks a lot latentheat. What kind of solvent should I use? Also, what concentrations and amounts of NaOH and acid should I use? How hot should I heat the solution? When the salicylic acid precipitates, what will it look like? Sorry for all the questions. I just like to be precise and exact. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
latentheat Posted July 10, 2005 Share Posted July 10, 2005 Thanks a lot latentheat. What kind of solvent should I use? Also' date=' what concentrations and amounts of NaOH and acid should I use? How hot should I heat the solution? When the salicylic acid precipitates, what will it look like? Sorry for all the questions. I just like to be precise and exact.[/quote'] I used acetone and it worked well. I kinda estimated with the NaOH. It was dilute tho, not concentrated. I don't have a scale yet Don't make it conc. because then it could deprotonate the resulting acids (salicylic acid and acetic acid). In other words, have a slight excess of acetylsalicylic acid. The salicylic acid will look like a white powder when it precipitates. EDIT: oh, and heat it until it just begins to boil, just slightly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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