CHEM123 Lecture Notes - Acetic Anhydride, Paracetamol, Molar Mass
13 Aug 2013
School
Department
Course
Professor
Document Summary
The purpose of this experiment is to determine the purity of a recovered product through the melting point determinations. This is done through a process of purification called crystallization, which removes impurities from a sample (stathopulos, 2013). When the amine group of p-aminophenol is acetylated with acetic anhydride, an amide group is added to form acetaminophen. Acetic acid is the by-product in the reaction. The equation of the rate is shown below: p-aminophen + acetic anhydride ---> acetaminophen + acetic acid. The acetaminophen is isolated from the products as a crude solid. Recrystallization is a process of purification where a solid is dissolved and recrystallized. Another common term for recrystallization is fractional crystallization. Recrystallization occurs when the crystal solid precipitates out of the solution. When the crude solid is recrystallized, the acetaminophen is isolated to form a pure solid. Crystals in the pure form contain no impurities of the compound acetaminophen (kelter & mosher, 2009).
