all right this is uh probably one of the
oldest samples of
aspirin currently in existence today in
the UK it's one of the first samples
ever made in
England aspirin is a very common drug
used for pain relief and
anti-inflammation and uh it's very very
old and uh very very effective this was
given to me by my next door neighbor
Professor Jerry Paton um who was the
professor Jess be professor of naum and
this was handed down through the C from
the original suggestive be Professor
Frederick Kipping who made this sample
in 1911 so here he is I got a picture of
him the old guy actually we're going to
make a bit of aspirin cuz it's one it's
actually the first molecule I ever made
let's get to the lab and crack on with
it
okay so who's helping me do aspirin
James you want to do aspirin someone do
something okay I'll do it I'll start
this is a salicylic acid this is a
starting material and what we're going
to do is isolate it but we're going to
use a compound called a reagent called a
Cagan hydride we're going to add some to
there then we're going to microwave it
just like we use a microwave to heat up
your food we're going to use a microwave
to heat up our molecules take a syringe
take out some atican nyde going run it
down the flask quite gently it's going
onto the salicylic acid and there 5 ml
there let's have a shake of that and I'm
just going to put in a little bit of
this phosphoric acid so this is clean I
wouldn't normally if it it wouldn't have
stick anything dirty in there so I'm
going to put a few drops in there this
is going to be a cataly is it's going to
speed up the reaction so one 2 3 4 5 one
for good luck yeah why not so now we're
going to move it over to our microwave
so now we're going to put the flask in
the microwave
chamber and uh sits in there quy
comfortably put the lid back on 15
minutes at 75ish De so we got to warm it
up to get the reaction going so now we
are it's heating up you can see it's
going from 23 it's getting up there
quite quickly 20 30° now so let's go
back to the office and we'll talk about
the background of aspirin well aspirin's
got very close links to Nottingham and
obviously we're in Nottingham University
um and you can see Boots the chemists or
pharmacists which is now one of the
biggest chains in in UK they manufacture
aspirin let's go back in time so let's
go to this molecule which is Sal ayic
acid so what we have here is a Benzene
ring a carboxilic acid an acid group
here and an alcohol group here now this
compound is actually um derived from a
compound from nature from a willow tree
called salicin and when you ingest
salicin it gets metabolized of salic
acid which is actually an
anti-inflammatory itself okay so for
many years people have been using willow
trees or willow bark to treat
inflammation and pain salicylic acid
which is the precursor to aspirin when
you saw me adding salicylic acid in the
flask with a acan hydde so what we're
going to do to salicylic acid is put
this group on it which is an atile group
and we're going to stick it on here so
we're going to swap this hydrogen and
put this on there so I'm going to do
that and this is what's happening in the
microwave now we've taken an atile group
and capped it onto this oxygen now this
is aspirin that's the molecule but in
the body aspirin inhibits the
biosynthesis of prostaglandins um it
actually inhibits an enzyme it stops an
enzyme from working so this sits in an
enzyme and what it does it delivers this
group that we just stuck gone and the
enzyme takes that group off and it can't
work anymore so it's as isolated the
enzyme stops it from working some
molecules cause inflammation and cause
pain so if you can stop the manufactur
of these molecules then uh it's
obviously very good you know it's it's a
good treatment and aspirin does that so
the asile group comes off here but also
the remaining part of the salicylic acid
this also sits in the enzyme and also
stops it from working so there's
actually two ways so without the acety
group The salicylic acid will have
enough effect it will inhibit the enzyme
or stop the enzyme from working but when
you deliver this group as well it's like
two for one it's a bonus so it was first
made by a Frenchman called Charles
Frederick Gart in 1853 which is quite a
long time ago but this wasn't really it
was just forgotten really until Felix
Hoffman who's a chemist at Baya
Pharmaceuticals he became interested in
uh in gearhart's work on aspirin and
what he did he he reproduced goad
synthesis and then he went home to his
dad who was suffering from I think a or
inflamm no arthritis he had and Hoffman
goes yeah Dad have some of this he took
it and hey Presto it relieved him of his
symptoms and I Hoffman thought great
Eureka moment again you know he had the
the wise uh he made the connection
perhaps we can make money out of this
wonder drug you know this new molecule
and he went back to Bayer convinced
Bayer to manufacture it and they
patented it in 1900 and then Bayer made
an absolute Fortune selling aspirin
around the world and in England we were
buying this drug from from Germany and
to treat our people and then all of a
sudden World War I breaks out we don't
become friends with you know we fall out
of friends with Germany and then the
supply of aspirin obviously stops so
this is where Professor Kipping comes in
and Boots Pharmaceuticals they decide to
start manufacturing aspirin for
themselves and um obviously selling it
to the allies and this is why the plant
was started in Nottingham in beaston in
1915 the production so right in the
beginning of World War One really and
Boots Pharmaceuticals made quite a lot
of money out of this and this is why
Nottingham university has a professor
boot or sesty boot professorship now
which is the money was given by boots to
start this up and the actually the land
which university of notan on was donated
by S Jessie boot so uh you know it's
we're actually tied into aspirin the
history of Nottingham is so that's why
I'm quite interested in this wonder drug
or this molecule that changed the world
this group here which is one of the
WarHeads of the aspirin is called an
atile group so a for atile spur SPI well
that comes from the name of the willow
plant which was it comes from and in
just happens to be a nice ending and
it's quite commonly used so as spur in
and that's uh how the name came
about yeah okay so we're ready to take
it off the
boil so you saw how it was it's all
undissolved now let's take it out and
see what it looks like oh it's a clear
oil I can smell vinegar that's a good
sign so about 20 M of water drop that
down side side slowly now that what
that'll do is destroy thean Hydra that's
remaining turn the stir on a little bit
there we are get it
mixing now what we're trying to do is
get the aspirin to crystallize out as a
solid it might take a little bit of
effort sometimes it happens straight
away not always and we might have to
heat it up one way to do it really well
is to do a crystallization so we heat
the mixture very hot and then we cool it
and during that process the aspirin
should crystallize out and give us some
really beautiful looking crystals can
you see any crystals what I'll do I'll
swirl it see if you can see like a
snowstorm effect in there can you see
that yeah okay so sometimes to help
speed up crystallization if you scratch
the inside of the flask sometimes it
crashes out fingers
crossed as you see the whole the whole
flask getting filled with Aspirin now
it's get the aspirin's crystallizing out
just from scratching it so that's
inducing crystallization yeah it's a
this is one of the things that makes
chemist really happy and love when you
see things so when I scratch it you can
you're actually forming a nice surface
for the crystals to kind of aggregate on
so just CU like something to grab onto
really that's how I look at
it so here it is I'm going to swirl the
flask pour the contents into the filter
funnel just hold it wa you see that you
got some
aspirin
well there quite a lot of
it there's a bottle of
aspirin so here's the sampler Kipping
group made in 1911 and here's a sample I
just made in the lab uh 2010 almost 100
years between them and I got to say
Kipping sample looks a lot better than
mine despite it being a lot older there
we have it Side by
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