[tealve]

Hi, I'm very confused on how to write a flow chart for the extraction step of phenacetin synthesis. So we first did a reflux for 1 hour where we added Acetaminophen, ethyl iodide, butanone, and K2CO3. Then we do extraction using dichromomethane (DCM) as the solvent. So I know that we initially are going to have Acetaminophen, ethyl iodide, phenacetin and butanone in the solution (after filtering out all the solid). What I don't understand is what exactly going in the aqueous and the organic layer at each step.

We first added 30ml DCM and 20ml water. Then we extracted aqueous layer with (2 x 10ml) DCM.
Then we washed the combined organic layer with NaOH, H2O and NaCl brine solution.

 

[rolnor]

Do you have any suggestion? Why does one wash with NaOH?