Introduction The purpose of this experiment was to purify acetanilide that was contaminated with relatively small amounts of impurities using recrystallization. The success of recrystallization was dependent on a suitable solvent being chosen and proper recrystallization technique being carried out. The solvent chosen had to have a different polarity than that of the molecule of interest. The technique used was dependent on the solubility of the solvent at higher temperature and the solubility of the impurities at all temperatures. To analyze the acetanilide product of the reaction, 1H NMR and IR were used. Results, Discussions, and Conclusions In this experiment, acetanilide was synthesized via nucleophilic acyl substitution from both acetic anhydride and aniline. During this reaction, aniline acts as the nucleophile and acyl (CH3CO-) group from acetic anhydride acts as the electrophile. The hydrogen atom of –NH2 group is replaced by the acyl group. The crude product contained acetanilide, and acetic acid, which was the impurity. Recrystallization, which was used to purify the contaminated acetanilide, required a suitable hot solvent which dissolved all the crude product, but upon being cooled, since …show more content…
The melting point range for the crude product was 113-115.3℃. the melting point range for the purified product was also 113-116℃. This melting point range was almost perfect to that of the theoretical melting point which is 113-115℃ proving that the product was in fact created. When looking at the percent yield of the crude acetanilide, there was an 81% yield which was a very good yield because the average percent yield is between 80-90%. The percent recovery of the acetanilide was 88% which is also very good because much of the product was recovered meaning that the product was in fact