It's been a while since I've been here but I wanted to restart some home chemistry after some stuff happened.
I wanted to make Bakelite after I read something about it on a Yahoo groups forum. The same person described the entire synthesis in a couple of
sentences. I decided to buy the required reagents and give it a shot, but when I looked for a more detailed protocol to follow, I couldn't find
anything with the starting materials I had ordered.
Quote:
Dissolve 10g Resorcinol in 16ml water.
Add 12ml 36% formaldehyde solution.
Add 1ml 5M sodium hydroxide.
Heat the mixture carefully until the reaction starts.
Most syntheses I could find online, started with phenol, or followed an entirely different set of steps.
I guess I could follow the steps as I first read them, with resorcinol, but not finding a single other source for this makes me wary about the
reliability of the source.
Can any of you shed some light on a better source with the same materials, or at least verify that I am not making a mistake by trying this? I tend to
be rather clumsy so I'd rather double check with more experienced people.
j_sum1 - 28-3-2017 at 01:30
Fantastic to have you back Jyliana. And great to be getting back into some home cgem.
My experience with bakelite is limited so I can't help much. I am sure someone will be able to help.WGTR - 28-3-2017 at 02:40
I don't have experience using resorcinol, but here is my own experiment using phenol:
Using ammonium hydroxide as a catalyst gives cleaner results than if sodium hydroxide is used.
Anyway, there are a variety of different formaldehyde resins, and the final properties can vary depending on the initial ratios of formaldehyde to the
other component being used.
P.S.: If you Google "resorcinol formaldehyde resins", you'll get quite a bit more information.
