Well, if you like to make your own reagents, go buy a large bottle of aspirin (or buy sodium salicylate on ebay(cheaper)). And dry distill with sodium
hydroxide in a stochiometrical excess, you should get crude phenol, you can then purify by standard mean. Decarboxylation of salicylate is known, I
don't have a reference for it taught.
Hope it helped you somewhat. |