..... Once i saw a Devil in a flame of fire, who arose beefore an Angel that sat on a cloud, and the Devil utter'd these words:
Some dirty, dark-brown p-MeO-phenol was obtained by xtracting w/
benzene a standard HQ/BQ/H2SO4/MeOH methylation, described in
Post 269667
(Antoncho: "Re: P-MeO-phenol from hydroquinone: part II", Novel Discourse), evaporating the C6H6 and drying the melted product on a waterbath under fumehood in an enameled saucer. The product then stood in open air for some days.
12,5 g of this disgustingly looking shit was dissolved in hot solution of 32g NaOH/36ml H2O. 4ml MeOH was added. All was placed into 100ml FBF (SWIM doesn't have a 100 ml RBF
).
The flask immediately upon addition of phenol was flushed w/butane, and so was the efficient air condenser which was placed upon it. The latter was loosely corked to prevent air from getting in.
So... The flask was immersed into a water bath held at 70 C - that was achieved by taking the largest pot SWIM could find in the house and placing it, full of water, on a electric hotplate switched to "II" mode (of the three modes available
). Surprizingly, it held the rxn at precisely 70 C all the time
Every 15 mins 1 ml of fract. distilled CHCl3 (well, i guess, distillation could bee omitted, but SWIM's chloroform boiled at 57 C, so he decided any other
modus operandi would bee unwise) was injected in w/a syringe, and the rxn immediately energetically swirled by hand to allow for absorption of CHCl3 into the mixture (this way it doesn't boil much - but boiling progressively increases during the course of the rxn).
After 4 hrs, add'n was stopped and the temp was kept at 70 C for 1 more hour.
The rxn was then cooled, acidified w/~80ml 25% H2SO4 - some black oil floats on top - xtracted w/25x25x15x10 mls of CHCl3, xtracts stirred w/a little NaHCO3 (solid - can you xplain me why they use a NaHCO3
solution all the time??? Please?? It's messy, and tends to form emulsions, whereas solid NaHCO3 is very simple to decant from), decanted, NaHCO3 washed w/a little bit of CHCl3, all combined in a 500 ml RBF, CHCl3 evap'd. Some black oil remains.
The flask is filled w/water and steam-distilled for like fucken eternity (>7hrs), collecting 600 ml distillate - after the 1st 300 mls are distilled, ~60 gr NaCl + 300 ml H2O are added to the flask. A visible qtty of yellow oil is seen floating on top of the distillate. SWIMis rather certain there
still remains quite a bit of the product in the water, but.....
The distillate is saturated w/170 g NaCl, xtracted w/50x50x25x20 mls CHCl3 (all the way SWIM used the same CHCl3 he distilled off bee4 (including previous runs) + adding some from the bottle as necessary), dried w/NaSO4, decanted, drying agent also washed w/a little CHCl3, and the solv't evaporated on a boiling waterbath in a 100 ml flask - after bubbling ceases, it's held for some time more, open - to remove any residual CHCl3. Some of it still remains in the product, as it seems, but not much at all (a sample tested).
Yield - 6,2 mls of a dark-yellow transparent liquid w/a funny, undescribable aromaceous odour, completely dissimilar to that of vanillin. Irritant to skin. Crystallizes in the freezer (ChemFinder says mp 4 C - is it true or a typo?)
The following notes should bee also in order:
1) Antoncho, on SWIM's beehalf, would like to
thank very much Karl, who was the pioneer of this procedure. Thank you, Karl!2) An pre-run w/a smaller qtty gave an identical result - ~1ml of product from 2g starting ... er... material.
3) The 'improved' procedure from the patent at Rhodium's - with semi-solid NaOH in chloroform - DOESN'T WORK (at least, with this dirty compound). Only 0,7 mls was isolated from 3 g starting material. The rest is tar... which would make a really cool window-pane hermetizer
The Angel hearing this beecame almost blue; but mastering himself he grew yellow, & at last white, pink and smiling and then replied:
"Thou Idolater! Is not God One?"
...... damn it, i think God is fucken Zero. But he does smile at times - like this:
Antoncho