There are two different groups of organic acids: carboxylic acids (strong acids) and phenols (weak acids).
In the separation procedure, acids were extracted using (weak or strong) basic aqueous solutions:
Both acids can be returned to the original form in the same manner!
Organic acids are currently dissolved in a basic aqueous solution, because the acid forms a salt, an ionic form. When you make the aqueous solution acidic, the organic acids no longer remain dissolved because they are no longer ionic and usually precipitate out of solution. This process is called acidification.
Acidification is done by carefully adding concentrated HCl solution until the mixture becomes acidic.
When the weak base, NaHCO3, was the extracting solution, CO2 gas will evolve during acidification.
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