Sciencemadness Discussion Board
Not logged in [Login ]
Go To Bottom

Printable Version  
Author: Subject: 3-nitrophthalic acid
Jor
National Hazard
****




Posts: 950
Registered: 21-11-2007
Member Is Offline

Mood: No Mood

[*] posted on 21-7-2011 at 15:43
3-nitrophthalic acid


I am about to prepare a large batch of luminol. Unfortunately my phthalic anhydride hasbeen partly degraded to phthalic acid. Does anyone know if phthalic acid can be nitrated in the same conditions as the anhydride (not requiring fuming acids) giving the same or better ratio of 3-isomer? I have been looking for references but can't find a good answer.

I can also heat and sublime or heat with xylene to get the phthalic anhydride but I'd rather don't.
View user's profile View All Posts By User
#maverick#
Hazard to Others
***




Posts: 209
Registered: 7-4-2011
Member Is Offline

Mood: hybridised

[*] posted on 21-7-2011 at 17:56


Nurdrage has a bid and he just heats the phallic acid to 300 c with a flask of cold water over the beaker and the pthalic anyhydride deposits on the sides like Cotten candy a d u just collect it. I'm in the process of tryig to get diethylhexyl pthalate from gloves then converting to pthalic acid it just won't work even though I used the sane method as nurdrage I'm starting to think the diethylhexyl phtalate was not used as the plasticizer in these gloves



View user's profile View All Posts By User
hkparker
National Hazard
****




Posts: 601
Registered: 15-10-2010
Location: California, United States
Member Is Offline

Mood: No Mood

[*] posted on 21-7-2011 at 18:49


I'm not sure Jor but the lack of documentation makes me think you should dehydrate it. I know UnintentionalChaos has used xylene before but what would your procedure be? Im not sure how that works but I know he used a dean stark trap.



My YouTube Channel

"Nothing is too wonderful to be true if it be consistent with the laws of nature." -Michael Faraday
View user's profile Visit user's homepage View All Posts By User
UnintentionalChaos
International Hazard
*****




Posts: 1454
Registered: 9-12-2006
Location: Mars
Member Is Offline

Mood: Nucleophilic

[*] posted on 21-7-2011 at 20:12


Fuming acids are unnecessary. We have a large thread on 3-nitrophthalic acid already with a number of excellent references. I was quite successful with azeotropic HNO3 (or rather concentrated HNO3 diluted to azeotropic strength) and concentrated sulfuric acid. Don't expect a high yield. if you assume that conversion to the 3 and 4 isomers is 50:50 (which it isn't), max yield is 50% for the desired isomer. I got reasonably pure 3-isomer in 35% yield.

http://youtu.be/dCo1uo8MDUQ

Quote: Originally posted by hkparker  
I'm not sure Jor but the lack of documentation makes me think you should dehydrate it. I know UnintentionalChaos has used xylene before but what would your procedure be? Im not sure how that works but I know he used a dean stark trap.


I placed a dean stark trap on top of a 1-neck 500ml RB flask containing the phthalic acid. I used a Friedrich condenser on top the the dean stark, but any good condenser should work.

the dean stark was filled with xylene just a little short of the spill-over point and the lower flask heated until the phthalic acid began to melt and dehydrate. Water comes up the neck of the dean stark and runs into the reciever. A little phthalic anhydride comes over as well, but not much. The xylene starts to spill over shortly and the distillate becomes milky from condensing azeotrope. Water continues coming over for a while.

I did not drain water from the dean stark but I was only expecting ~4ml of water to come over displacing ~3ml of xylene into the stillpot and condenser. There was probably no liquid xylene in the stillpot to drive down the temperature as might be a concern with larger batches. In that case, I'd remove water from the trap mid-procedure so less xylene is outside the trap.

Eventually the condensate stays clear, at which point, you are done. Once cooled and frozen, I added more xylene to the product (benzene or toluene would have been better because the xylene is difficult to remove from the product due to it's high boiling point), the mix was heated until homogenous and allowed to cool slowly, forming crystals of phthalic anhydride. These are filtered off. The melting point agreed with that of an authentic sample.

Loss can be minimized by stirring the xylene with hot NaOH solution or similar to remove the phthalic anhydride as disodium phthalate and recycling to phthalic acid.

[Edited on 7-22-11 by UnintentionalChaos]




Department of Redundancy Department - Now with paperwork!

'In organic synthesis, we call decomposition products "crap", however this is not a IUPAC approved nomenclature.' -Nicodem
View user's profile View All Posts By User
hkparker
National Hazard
****




Posts: 601
Registered: 15-10-2010
Location: California, United States
Member Is Offline

Mood: No Mood

[*] posted on 21-7-2011 at 21:07


@UnintentionalChoas Does the xylene extraction give better yields then NurdRage's decomp method? Also as Jor said do you know if we can just nitrate phthalic acid, not the anhydride?



My YouTube Channel

"Nothing is too wonderful to be true if it be consistent with the laws of nature." -Michael Faraday
View user's profile Visit user's homepage View All Posts By User

  Go To Top