i read that  pthalic acid (particularly ortho and para) easily yields benzoic acid when heated with a copper salt catalyst (e.g. Copper pthalate), it occurs via elimination of CO2.

(that could be somewhat usefull in and of itself, pthalic acid can be obtained by hydrolysing dacron for instance, i.e. throw the stuffing from inside your underage girlfriends teddy bear into some boiling H20,H2S04, she'll cry at first but imagine the smile on her face when her teddy bear yields 100g of benzoic acid!)

but the real opportunity i see from this is a possible route to benzene, the book seemed to indicate that the reaction is general for aryl-COOH compounds, does anyone have any knowledge/articles about generating benzene by CO2 elimination from benzoic acid???

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does anyone have any knowledge/articles about generating benzene by CO2 elimination from benzoic acid???

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The real question here is, are you ever going to start using the search engine before posting    By simply inputting the terms benzene and benzoic into the search engine, you would have found:

Post 185238 (missing)

(lugh: "Re: bezene from methylbenzene???", Methods Discourse)

Post 185325 (missing)

(lugh: "Re: bezene from methylbenzene???", Methods Discourse)

as well as some posts by other bees on the same subject. You should have learned by now  

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