Why is the mixture(aspirin tablets +1.0M NaOH+ water) simmered gently and carefully during hydrolysis?
I have done this synthesis. The aspirin heats up to very high temperatures. In fact, when I left the aspirin mixture boiling it started to throw off very hot bits of the solution. One almost flew into my eye. Safety is definitely the reason. Of course if you look at what we are trying to accomplish here, a transesterification, this makes sense.
