How does one go about making benzene? Easy, purchase some Sodium Benzoate, this stuff is so incredibly cheap where i come from, you can buy it for under 50 cent's a kilo. About 150 grams of Sodium Benzoate mixed with 75 grams of Sodium Hydroxide will yield about 100ml's of Benzene, under an ideal distillation, if i am correct, i believe that would be about the end result from those corresponding ingredient numbers. It may be a little more or less, but somewhere around there.

There are other ways to make Benzene, but personally i do not see how they are worthwile since this method is so easy and cheap.

Thanks.
- AmphChem.

Well you can import it for that price but there is no need. Sorry, i just checked, it's $2.50 a kg here, so $5 for a 2kg bag, that's still nuts! Considering 500ml of Benzene is about $40 from my chemical supplier, i'd be insane not to make it!!

Food supply stores, people use Sodium Benzoate as a preservative for liquid beverages, so it's easily available from those places. And in any major city you will find a plentiful amount of such stores and warehouses who will sell it to you. If your lucky, you get nice sales people, they sell it to me without hesitation, just tell them that you want it for a whistle mix for fireworks if they ask why... That's what i do.

Thanks.
- AmphChem.

I Believe biphenyl in a small amount. Nothing major, most of the product is pure benzene, maybe 1 or 2% will be biphenyl, which can easily be removed by redistilling the distillate.

Thanks.
- AmphChem.

Sodium carbonate is the end product. Benzene from toluene is not a very scaleable route. The permanganate oxidation takes much solvent - near a couple 1000% of the toluene. Ampchem, I'm sure you could find cheaper benzene than that. Check for 8 to 9 bucks for 500ml

EXP benzene generators, advice here please.

, your making this sound EAZY< and when I mentioned this to a friend who told me that he finds it somewhat difficult, I think it is his set up, so anylway, he adds the NaBzoate with the Na OH and places this in a tin, about  a 400ml tin, that has a copper pipw in lid ( and becomes 100% airtight)and this pipe is about sau 400mm long and runs through a makeshipt pvc pipe about 3.5 inch wide and 3 foot long, that hs water entering leaving, and the problem is all he has is 1 bunson burner, a reasonably strong one, but everything is airtight, hell get a few drops, but it appears that the gaseous benzene is not being easily reconverted into solution, so its all go up in air.. WOUld you mind describing your friend who knows his neighbours gardener who does this succesfully, and any tips and I will pass it on to my friiend, who is a budding amateur chemist..

Id really appreciate some suggestion, as benzene is a very basic building block, and is requred for a number of interesting, preps my chem fireind is into. Id also be interesting in being one day being able to do this, and it is very useful in my interest in seeing if I can make various health products with limited reagants, and a somewhat mediocre amount of hardware..

THANKS IN advance,, pls

2b
2b

hey vesp,, the condenser is a long pvc tube that has the copper tubing from the tin, leading though the pvc tubing, and water, nice cold water is circulation.. becuase he doesn't want breakage, he rigged up this contraption. the pvc condenser is in actual 2 foot long, and apox, but close is 3.5 inch wide, he noticid that gasous benzene is basicaly drifting right through the condenser, and coming out as gas..

2b

anything else other than copper, any other metal would suffice, Stainless steel, cut up fine?

its not, gaseous benzene is wafting out the end of the copper tube coming out the condenser.. Perhaps I need to test getting much cooler temp for condenser.. youve given me some ideas, and I can play around..

THANKYOU

Vesp.

You would have to distill it regardless. Look at the crude product on the sciencemadness publication I linked to above. It is very dirty.