55 g of hydroquinone, 115 g of isopropyl alcohol as a reaction medium, and 1 g of iodine as a catalyst were charged into a 300 ml four-necked glass reaction vessel with a stirrer, a dropping funnel, and a thermometer. Then stirring was started, and after 58 g of a 35% hydrogen peroxide solution were added over about 3 hours while keeping the temperature at 30-35°C, the temperature was raised to about 45°C, which was kept for about 3 hours to complete the reaction. After the completion of the reaction, the reaction mixture was cooled gradually to about 15°C, and the reaction product was filtered by suction. The reaction product was washed with a small amount of isopropyl alcohol, and dried under reduced pressure to yield 49.5 g of p-benzoquinone. The yield was 91.6% (based on the charged hydroquinone, hereinafter the same being applied), the melting point was 111-112°C, and the purity as measured by HPLC was 99.0%.
The filtered mother liquor containing isopropyl alcohol that had been obtained by filtering the reaction product by suction was distilled under normal pressures or reduced pressure in a usual manner to recover aqueous isopropyl alcohol containing about 12% of water. The recovered isopropyl alcohol can be used again as a reaction medium in the next reaction.
Is iodine really needed? And if iodine is needed is there a source of iodine that can be bought in a grocery store or similar? I read Bond_DoubleBond Benzo Bees reaction and think that no iodine is needed if heat is used as the catalyst. Just IMO... What do you think?
Post 473279 (https://www.thevespiary.org/talk/index.php?topic=9868.msg47327900#msg47327900)
(Bond_DoubleBond: "Big Breakthrough for Benzo Bees", Methods Discourse)Iodine is a List II chemical.
So is Acetone, but it's sold in hardware stores across the US ;) .
Iodine can easily be extracted from veterinary Iodine 7% tincture.