Aspirin SAC

[tony3272]

I have my aspirin sac this thursday(or friday?). We're basically just preparing aspirin and then doing a mini write up with some questions for the discussion in the same lesson. Since it's supposed to be a suprise for us when we ge there, we have no details about the sac except what i've just stated.
So I was just wondering;

Is there any way we can prepare aspirin besides reacting salicylic acid with ethanoic anhydride?
And also, is there a lot theory-wise that would we would generally need to know about this?
Thanks guys  :smitten:

[jackson1234]

Well the prac is pretty straight forward, i.e. theres not much to it.
Just revise the theory related to the creation of aspirin especially the bonding aspects to it. Be familiar with molecular formulas and questions like ... " why is cold water used" . You could use ethanoic acid to prepare aspirin, but i doubt it would be used as it leads to a lower yield (water may react back through hydrolysis) and the reaction is relatively slow.

[tony3272]

Well the prac is pretty straight forward, i.e. theres not much to it.
Just revise the theory related to the creation of aspirin especially the bonding aspects to it. Be familiar with molecular formulas and questions like ... " why is cold water used" . You could use ethanoic acid to prepare aspirin, but i doubt it would be used as it leads to a lower yield (water may react back through hydrolysis) and the reaction is relatively slow.

Ah okay thanks. Thats good then 

[meli001]

Other than ethanoic anhydride, you can use ethanoic acid the only thing is though the percentage yield is likely to be less and you have a by-product (water) whereas if you use ethanoic anhydride, your by-product would be ethanoic acid and you could reuse that to make ethanoic anhydride

Just saying

Good luck!

[tony3272]

How would you show that the sulfuric acid is a catalyst and not a reactant in this prac?

[cibicl]

How would you show that the sulfuric acid is a catalyst and not a reactant in this prac?

You would perform two reactions - one using the sulfuric acid, the other not using it. You would time then and see if the one with the H2SO4 would react quicker.
Goodluck on your SAC

[tony3272]

How would you show that the sulfuric acid is a catalyst and not a reactant in this prac?

You would perform two reactions - one using the sulfuric acid, the other not using it. You would time then and see if the one with the H2SO4 would react quicker.
Goodluck on your SAC

Ah that's simple    Thanks

[DisaFear]

We have our aspirin sac write-up tommorow, I could give you our questions, if you wanted to answer them, the prac questions (I assume that isn't illegal, aye, just sharing questions)

[tony3272]

We have our aspirin sac write-up tommorow, I could give you our questions, if you wanted to answer them, the prac questions (I assume that isn't illegal, aye, just sharing questions)

Haha ours is thursday. Have you already done the prac?

[DisaFear]

Yep, write-up is tommorow

[tony3272]

Yep, write-up is tommorow

Oh ours is weird since we do the prac and write up in the same day.

[DisaFear]

Ours was a 4 day process

[eeps]

I did the Aspirin SAC last week. The actual prac questions may vary slightly from school to school, but some of the questions I had to answer were:

- Draw the full structure of the Aspirin reaction.
- Circle the functional groups in Salicylic acid.
- What's the purpose of adding Sulfuric acid?
- What is the limiting reagent in the reaction?
- Why is water added at the end of the reaction?
- What’s the theoretical yield of the Aspirin? You're given figures for this question.
- Comment on the purity of the sample.

My SAC had about 15 theory-based questions - quite long; the actual prac itself isn't that hard. Good luck.

[DisaFear]

I did the Aspirin SAC last week. The actual prac questions may vary slightly from school to school, but some of the questions I had to answer were:
- What's the purpose of adding Sulfuric acid?
- Why is water added at the end of the reaction?

Go on, give us some answers

[tony3272]

I did the Aspirin SAC last week. The actual prac questions may vary slightly from school to school, but some of the questions I had to answer were:

- Draw the full structure of the Aspirin reaction.
- Circle the functional groups in Salicylic acid.
- What's the purpose of adding Sulfuric acid?
- What is the limiting reagent in the reaction?
- Why is water added at the end of the reaction?
- What’s the theoretical yield of the Aspirin? You're given figures for this question.
- Comment on the purity of the sample.

My SAC had about 15 theory-based questions - quite long; the actual prac itself isn't that hard. Good luck.

Oh wow nice. That doesn't seem to bad.