Aniline is a very useful building block in organic chemistry, primarily as a precursor to many dyes. It is a colorless liquid when pure, but commercial and homemade samples will often appear yellow, or even black, due to its tendency to form highly colored polymers. Although the impurities will not interfere with some reactions, it … Continue reading Vacuum Distillation of Aniline
For my first chemistry post in a long time, I prepared 2-iodobenzoic acid from anthranilic acid using the Sandmeyer reaction. In the first step, the diazonium salt is formed by reaction of nitrous acid with anthranilic acid (nitrous acid is formed in situ from sodium nitrite and HCl). In the second step, potassium iodide is … Continue reading Preparation of 2-iodobenzoic acid
For the last year since I moved for college, I have been working on building a new lab space. I moved all of my equipment and furniture from my old lab, and have acquired some more since then. I built my own working fume hood, since the new lab is in a garage with no … Continue reading Texium Labs 3.0 Reveal
This post represents a public expression of some brainstorming I've been doing lately regarding how to determine what it truly means to have a "fully stocked" lab, and what the minimum array of chemicals that must be bought so that virtually any organic chemistry that can be carried out in an amateur lab will become … Continue reading Essential Chemicals for the Organic Lab
Two weekends ago, Sciencemadness member (and good friend) Amos happened to be in Austin for vacation, so we met up and though we didn't have much time, we were still able to do some chemistry together. Anthocyanin Extraction from Mealy Sage During the spring in the Texas Hill Country, the landscape is filled with wildflowers, … Continue reading A Collaborative Weekend
I didn't have much time to do chemistry on spring break, unfortunately, but I did get to make some anthranilic acid based on ChemPlayer's video. I followed the video procedure almost exactly. Procedure About 20 grams of sodium hydroxide (from drain cleaner) is added to 100 mL of ice water in a 500 mL wide-mouthed … Continue reading Preparation of Anthranilic Acid
I'm home for the weekend and have lab access, so I decided to try the next reaction in Fieser's series, the reduction of Martius yellow to 2,4-diaminonaphthol. I was not successful, but I've written up the procedure anyway. Fortunately I did it as a small scale test, so not much was lost and I still … Continue reading Attempt at making 2,4-diaminonaphthol
The flurry of lab activity that I've had the last few weeks since I started this blog was due to being home for the holidays. I had more time than I'd had in months to work on my home chemistry projects. Even so, there was far more to do than I had time for, so … Continue reading Back to School
As it turns out, the crystals of "Martius yellow" that I recovered from the acetone washings are truthfully not Martius yellow. Unfortunately, I failed to realize this until after I recrystallized my entire supply. The compound, while also an intensely colored yellow-orange dye, is much darker in the solid form than Martius yellow acid. It … Continue reading Update on Martius Yellow- Don’t mix with acetone!
Yesterday I purchased a vintage Mettler balance, circa 1961, if I estimate correctly from what little information I can find about them. It is the B5 model, which was first released in 1955, and manufactured through the 60s. Official Mettler service for them was discontinued in 1972, though it appears they had already stopped selling … Continue reading Recent Acquisition- Vintage Mettler Balance
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