Due to it’s analgesic, anti-inflammatory, and anti-plateletproperties, aspirin has been used as a treatment for a wide variety of symptoms. It is used to treat arthritis, headaches, fever, and colds. It is also used to help prevent strokes in those who have already had one, aswell as those who have had angina strokes. The first “aspirin” was harvested from willow trees as far back as 2000 B.C., rather than harvesting thousands of willow trees, today aspirin is synthesized, and is one of the most accessible, and cheapest medicines out there.
One of the factors that makes aspirin easy to make is that is requires a small amount of ingredients to produce. Another factor that makes it very cost effective is that it can be synthesized within an hour and therefore is easier to keep up with the demand levels. The actual process of making aspirin is fairly simple as it is a matter of mixing and cooling solutions. The materials needed to produce aspirin are not common, household items but are fairly common to find in the store or online i.e. beakers, flask, pipet, graduated cylinder, and a hot plate (or equivalent). When making the aspirin varying quantities can be made as long at the ratio of ingredients used remain unchanged.
To begin, weigh out the appropriate amount of salicylic acid into a dry glass container. Then measure out and add the acetic anhydride and drops of 85% phosphoric acid to the container and swirl the container to mix it, proceed to immerse in warm water for approximately fifteen minutes(Be sure not to let any water in the mixture!). After time is up, add one millimeter of water to the solution ( this will neutralize any remaining acetic anhydride. Add an additional twenty millimeters of water to the solution and place in refrigerator or area with cold temperatures, during this time the solution will begin to form crystals. When the crystallization process is complete pour through a Büchner funnel (used for filtration) to separate the solid crystals from the remaining liquid solution and proceed to rinse crystals with ice water (the cool temperature helps to keep them from dissolving. The basic product is acetylsalicylic acid (aspirin) but it is not pure and contains impurities. To be purified, they need to be recrystallized by stirring in ten milliliters of ethanol and warming the solution to dissolve the crystals. Once the crystals are completely dissolved, add twenty five milliliters of water to the solution and let cool until the recrystallization process begins; once the crystals begin to reform set in ice to complete the crystallization. Place the crystals on paper towel to soak up any water, and the product is complete.
Source: http://chemistry.about.com/od/demonstrationsexperiments/ss/aspirin_3.htm
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