Homework Help: organic chemistry

Posted by Tammy on Monday, October 4, 2010 at 1:32am.

The isolation process of aspirin was stopped after the filtration step with alumina and one week later the methanol was evaporated and the experiment was completed. The melting point of the aspirin was found to be 110-115 Celsius. explain why the meltingpoint was low and why the melting range was so wide.
can you please help
also if the process would be completed on time what are the reasons that the % of recovery is less than 100% ?

organic chemistry - Dr Russ, Monday, October 4, 2010 at 3:47am
The low and wide melting point could be low due to the sample being impure. Reasons include:
incomplete drying so that the sample still ocntains some methanol and/or water.
the sample may still contain some of the starting materials.

another possibility is did the sample smell of oil of wintergreen? If the aspiring is left standing in methanol some of the COOH group will be esterified to the methyl ester.

Any manipulation of a sample will result in small losses. You need to look at the steps you took to see where sample may have been 'lost'.
organic chemistry - Tammy, Tuesday, October 5, 2010 at 1:16pm
thank you

Answer this Question

Related Questions

Chemistry - A student who was isolating aspirin stopped the experiment after ...
chemistry - A student decided to extract aspirin from a tablet. After the ...
org. chem. - A student who was isolating aspirin stopped the experiment after ...
Analgesics - We're doing a TLC analysis of analgesic drugs. One of my prelab...
CHEMISTRY - In a wet lab you will separate the solid aspirin from the liquid ...
organic chemistry - what is the purpose of a hot filtration? when is it ...
chemistry - assuming that 1g of aspirin dissolves in 450ml of water at 10Â...
chemistry - Assuming that 1 gram of aspirin dissolves in 450 ml of water at 10&...
chem102 - assuming that 1g of aspirin dissolves in 450ml of water at 10Â&...
chemistry - a. What is the molecular weight of aspirin (C9H8O4)? 180.1574 amu b...

For Further Reading

First Name:
School Subject:
Answer: