Question

This Question is from an Organic Chemistry Lab entitled: Natural Product Isolation: Isolation of Eugenol from Oil of Cloves

a.) How could acid/base extraction be used to isolate the aspirin in Excedrin from the other active ingredients? This will take some serious thought, make sure to consider the acidity of the various functional groups

b.) Eugenol and eugenyl acetate are very similar molecules. Why can these molecules be separated by liquid-liquid extraction in spite of thesesimilarities?

c.) If you were given a clove plant how could you isolate the Eugenol from the plantsample?

Thanks for the help.

Answer 1

a. component

• Acetaminophen 250 mg
• Aspirin 250 mg – Non-Steroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug (NSAID)
• Caffeine 65 mg

Since aspirin, paracetamol are the only compound with acid properties, we can convert the acid into a salt and then separate it, then, as aspirine is not as soluble as paracetamol in water, we can deconvert them into their bassal forms and separate them.

2.3. As Eugenol is an acid and Eugenyl acetate is not, we can separate them as follows: