Homework Help: Chemistry

Posted by Gretchen on Wednesday, May 25, 2011 at 8:53pm.

I was heating a flask containing salicylic acid, acetic anhydride, and H2SO4 to synthesize aspirin. During the heating period, a black sludge appeared at the bottom of the flask. I have no idea what this could be. Other students had experiments that worked just fine so there is nothing wrong with the reagents. What could this be?

Chemistry - DrBob222, Thursday, May 26, 2011 at 12:54am
It's a guess on my part but I suspect you used concd H2SO4 and that dehydrated something which left carbon as the black sludge. A second scenario is that the flask was dirty at the beginning of the experiment.

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