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Panacetin Lab Report

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Discussion The third experiment of the semester involves identifying an unknown component of Panacetin, a common pain relief medication, separated and precipitated in the previous experiment. Although Panacetin’s label reports this third ingredient as Tylenol, there is controversy over the true classification of the third substance. This Panacetin label also reports that the unknown constituent makes up 50% of the composition of Panacetin, compared to aspirin’s 40% composition and sucrose’s 10% composition, meaning that it is currently unknown what half of the drug people ingest is identified as. Research results have failed to repeatedly show that the third component of Panacetin is Tylenol, which leads to the hypothesis that this unknown …show more content…

Prior to beginning the experiment, it is important to understand a few different concepts such as the distinguishing physical properties of a chemical substance and how these physical properties can be analyzed. Physical properties of a chemical substance include water solubility and melting point, both of which are used to pursue identification of the unknown component of Panacetin. Water solubility is a distinct physical feature of chemical substances that can lead to an increase or decrease in product recovered. For example, the water solubility of the two possible unknowns, acetanilide or phenacetin, are different in opposite temperature spectrums. Acetanilide’s cold water solubility is 0.54 grams/100 mL of water, whereas the substance’s boiling water solubility is 5.0 grams/100 mL of water. Phenacetin’s cold water solubility is 0.076 grams/100 mL of water, whereas its boiling water solubility is 1.22 grams/100 mL of water. In this experiment, water solubility will be an indicator for how much boiling water to use in recrystallization, which purifies the unknown precipitate produced in the second lab. If a substance has higher water solubility in boiling water, such as acetanilide compared …show more content…

I would have liked to do one more trial on each mixture for melting point analysis to confirm that my results were consistent. Furthermore, I would go back and repeat the second experiment to avoid adding HCl to the organic layer in order to separate an accurate weight of the unknown solid and ensure that the purity of the unknown is unaffected by an accidental HCl addition. I am unsure if my results are truly accurate due to the HCl addition and other errors, which means that the experiment would need to be repeated multiple times in order to report a consistent result. In conclusion, this experiment covered the techniques of recrystallization and melting point analysis, both of which are based on understanding physical properties such as water solubility and melting point. I identified my unknown component as acetanilide based on the melting point ranges recorded during melting point analysis. The most important thing to remember is that acetanilide possibly replaced Tylenol as a component in Panacetin. It is necessary to continue to work to uncover the true components of Panacetin because it has remained to be a common pain relief medication in the drug

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