Final Assignment (Chemistry)

By
Waraphan Sumetawenunt (Eve) 11-1
Part 1:
In order to figure out the overall process, knowing what the chemical is, with a little
bit of background information about a substance, would lead to better an understanding.
Alkaloid is a nitrogenous organic molecule found in living organism. It is composed of
carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen, and eventually oxygen in their molecular structure. According
to Pelletier (1983): An alkaloid is a cyclic compound containing nitrogen in a negative
oxidation state which is of limited distribution in the living organism. It is an organic base
which contains amine group and could be found mostly in the seed of the plants. Some
plants, for example opium poppy and tobacco plant, can be found alkaloid in their leaves,
roots, seeds, and bark. It has to be extracted from the plant before it can be used. The
alkaloid that has been extracted are bitter and has no colour. Alkaloid often be used as a
component of the medicine because the alkaloid could react very fast on particular areas
of the nervous system.
The process of extracting is not that simple. It requires an acid and a base as a
substance to help us get the substance we want. We begin the first step with adding the
water and acetic acid (CH3COOH). Acetic acid is the diluted acid which its a weak acid. It
will react with the amine group that contained in alkaloid, then change it into ammonium
salt. As a property of acid, it will donate the proton to the amine group. This result as an
ammonium salt (NH4+) which is polar and would be able to dissolve in water(H 2O) because
water is also a polar molecule. After that we boil the solution is because the higher
temperature it is, the faster the rate of reaction within the solution would be. Then, we take
out of the undissolved material out of the solution. The next step is adding a base into the
solution that has already take out the insoluble material. The base we added will react to
the ammonium salt. As the property of base, it will take the proton from other molecule to
be theirs. In this case, it would take the proton from the ammonium salt which would cause
the ammonium salt turns back into amine. The precipitation reaction would occur. Amine
wont dissolve in water as a non-polar molecule and will later on, precipitate in the water.
So that we could filter out the precipitate of amine in a solid form out of the solution and
use it to examine for a further process of making drug.
From the experiment, we could conclude from that the chemical that was extracted
from the bark of an unknown type of plant in the Amazon jungle is alkaloid that contains an
amine group. The reason that we know is because of the experiment, we first added an
acid to it, there was a salt produced. Then, we can sure that the chemical must be basic in
order to create a salt, base and acid must combine together. Then, we later add a base to

turn it back to what it was to collect the precipitate that happen from the precipitation
reaction that had occurred.

References:
Robert, M. F.; Wink, M. (1998). Alkaloids: Biochemistry, Ecology, and Medicinal
Applications[Online]. Available: http://www.uniheidelberg.de/institute/fak14/ipmb/phazb/pubwink/1998/14.%201998.pdf [Saturday, 24Jan-2015 10:10 EST].
Schaffer, J.; Herman, C. Precipitation Reactions[Online]. Available:
http://chemwiki.ucdavis.edu/Inorganic_Chemistry/Reactions_in_Aqueous_Solutions/Precip
itation_Reactions [Saturday, 24-Jan-2015 10:10 EST].
Osmium. (2005). Alkaloid Extraction Document[Online]. Available:
https://www.erowid.org/archive/rhodium/chemistry/alkastract.html [Saturday, 24-Jan-2015
10.11 EST].

Part 2:
1. Explain one common use of acid/base chemistry in everyday life.
As everyone has been told since we were very young, probably the first thing to
recognise about acid, is that it has a sour taste. So, it might have been used as an
ingredient to cook the food to make it tasteful by adding a little bit of a sour taste. The
vinegar, which is the diluted acetic acid and also lime and lemon too. Vegetable like lime
and lemon also contain citric acid that helps maintain metabolism in our body. Some fruits,
such as orange, contain citric acid the same with lime and lemon and its healthy for our
health. The acid also be found in our body, inside the stomach. Hydrochloric acid or HCL
provides the suitable state or the proper pH for the enzyme to be active and perform its
work.
For the base, it is well known in cleaning product. Mostly of the cleaning products,
for example toothpaste and a soap, contain basic property. Even for a base, it also used as

an ingredient of food too. Baking soda is one of the well known base either. It has a basic
property and it is commonly use to bake a cake or almost every kind of bakery product.

2. Give an example and reason of a precipitation reaction

Precipitation reaction occurs when the cations molecule and anions combine in an
aqueous solution to from a precipitate. It also could be called as a double replacement
reaction. The ions replaces each other, switching partner, which that the two reactants
each lose their partner and bind with another partner instead. A precipitate is a insoluble
ionic solid substance that forms out of the solution. We could determine that whether it is a
precipitate reaction or not by using the solubility rules as a simplest method to identify.
However, not all of the reaction would form a precipitate. By recognising, we would see the
solid that will fall to the bottom of the solution. The liquid part we called supernatant liquid
which the mixture always contains two opponent which are the precipitate and the
supernatant liquid. Separating the two part from each other could be done by the method
of filtration. The example of the precipitation reaction is the solution with silver nitrate and
sodium chloride which would give out the production of precipitate as silver chloride. The
net ionic reaction is:
AgNO3 + NaCl

AgCl + NaNO3