Hydrochloric acid is an extremely corrosive acid that is often used as a laboratory reagent. The most common way to synthesize hydrochloric acid is by dissolving hydrogen chloride in water. Additionally, hydrochloric acid is present in human gastric juices. In this reaction, HCl functioned in the acidic workup to make sure the product was protonated and not its conjugate base.

 

HCl. PubChem Compound [online]; National Center for Biotechnology Information, posted no date cited.

http://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/summary/summary.cgi?cid=313 (accessed Mar 31, 2014)

 

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