pure acetylsalicylic acid has a melting point of 135.0 - 135.5 degreed celsius. what would you expect to happen to the melting point if this was mized as a 50:50 mixture with pure benzoic acid (mp 121 - 122)

To predict what would happen to the melting point of a mixture of pure acetylsalicylic acid and pure benzoic acid, we need to consider the phenomenon known as melting point depression.

Melting point depression occurs when a solute (in this case, benzoic acid) is added to a solvent (in this case, acetylsalicylic acid) and disrupts the regular arrangement of the solvent's molecules. This disruption lowers the melting point of the resulting mixture.

In this scenario, since both acetylsalicylic acid and benzoic acid are solid organic compounds, they can be described as similar solute-solvent pairs. As a result, we can expect the melting point of the mixture to be lower than the melting point of pure acetylsalicylic acid.

The amount of depression in the melting point depends on the concentration of the solute (benzoic acid in this case). The greater the concentration of benzoic acid, the lower the melting point depression and vice versa. Since the mixture is described as a 50:50 mixture, we can expect a significant decrease in the melting point compared to pure acetylsalicylic acid.

However, it is not possible to determine the exact melting point of the mixture without knowing the specific composition and detailed thermodynamic properties of the system. To have a more accurate estimate or actual value, experimental data or calculations using thermodynamic models would be needed.