Organic Chemistry Help? Aspirin?
As a children's medicine, Tylenol has a major marketing advantage over aspirin: Liquid Tylenol preparations are stable, whereas comparable aspirin solutions are not. Aspirin has a phenyl ester functionality. When this ester bond is subjected to water for prolonged periods of time, it hydrolyzes to the carboxylic acid and a phenol derivative. Write the structure of all products.
Problem is... I don't know what the products are =(
Answers & Comments
Verified answer
This is a simple hydrolysis of an ester. You can understand this concept more simply by thinking of it as just adding a water molecule at the ester site or portion of the molecule, which splits the compound into two separate compounds. The ester group in acetylsalicylic acid ( aspirin ) is the portion where the oxygen is single bonded to a carbon on both sides. Adding a water molecule to this portion (ester hydrolysis) gives us two products, both salicylic acid and acetic acid.
Acetaminophen is a susceptible acid because of the fact it is composed of a phenol hydroxyl team. The pKa of phenols is often around 10, which constitutes a susceptible acid. Aspirin has an acetyl ester (CH3CO2-R). IF there have been an alkyl team on the carboxylic acid, it would be a diester.