Synthesis of Acetaminophen
Lab Report

Bijal Patel, 20467049
Partner: Poojan Parikh
T.A.’s: Long Pu
CHEM 123L, Section: 006, Rm: ESC 149
Tuesday February 4, 2013, 2:30pm-5:20pm
Experiment Done: Tuesday January 22, 2013

Introduction

Acetaminophen was first introduced in 1955 (Richman, 2004). It is an over-the-counter drug that relieves pain and reduced fevers. Acetaminophen is considered an alternate to aspirin since it does not irritate the stomach (Richman, 2004). It also has very low toxicity is it is used properly. Acetaminophen is cheap and easily obtainable from any pharmacy.
Acetaminophen is created when the amine group of p-aminophenol is acetylated by acetic anhydride. This creates an amide functional group and the …show more content…

c) An amide is an organic compound/ functional group that contains nitrogen and is considered to be a derivative of ammonia. It is grouped with a carbonyl (Newton, 2004).

3. Tylenol got its name from p-aminophenol. Since tynenol is made up of p-aminophenol the name can be found within the word, “paraceTYLaminophENOL (Richman, 2004). The p-aminophenol is a crucial part to the creation of acetaminophen; hence, it was appropriate to name the brand “Tylenol”.

Conclusion

The purpose of this experiment was to determine the melting points of the crude and purified sample of acetaminophen. Through this, it was found that the crude solid melted faster than the purified solid that is what is supposed to happen ideally. The recrystallization technique was also proven affective since the mass of the solid decreased showing that the impurities were dissolved in the solution. This experimental method is highly effective as the values are generally accurate. There are not many areas where one can make mistakes as well which compliment the efficiency of this experiment. The main error possible in this experiment would be reading the temperature at which the solid melts; however, that is not in the experiment, as that would depend on the experimenter. Overall, this experiment was constructed fairly well giving values that solidify the theories behind this experiment.

References

1. Hine, R.; Martin, E. A Dictionary of