Suppose you prepare a sample of paracetamol by reacting 10.0g of p-aminophenol with 15.0g of acetic anhydride. You obtain 10.8g of pure paracetamol as a product. What is the percentage yeild of the reaction?

Answer 1

1. Write and balance the equation.
2. Convert g to mols for each reactant. mols = grams/molar mass = ?
3. Using the coefficients in the balanced equation, convert mols each reactant to mols product. You will likely obtain two different values for mols of the product. The SMALLER one is the correct value for mols product obtained and the reagent responsible for that is the limiting reagent.
4. Convert smaller number of mols to grams. grams = mols x molar mass. This is the theoretical yield (TY)
5. The actual yield (AY) is 10.8 g from the problem.
6. %yield = (AY/TY)*100 = ?
Post your work if you get stuck.