Hydrolysis Reaction: Aspartame & Water Breakdown

[BiggerStronger]

I am a newbie to organic chemistry. Can someone please outline a hydrolysis reaction of aspartame...I.E. parts of aspartame to parts of water.

I would greatly appreciate it. :)

What would be left over after the hydrolysis reaction. I read it should be phenylalanine...How would you purify the solution of any inpurities?

 

[Chemicalsuperfreak]

It's a pretty standard hydrolysis, you can find the mechanism in any O-chem text. There's really no use in explaining it step by step verbally on a message board.

Notice the structure of aspartame. They hydrolysis occurs at the amide functionality which cleaves the molecule into a carboxylic acid and an amine, the latter of which is phenylalanine.