Making Benzoic Acid (from sodium benzoate)

Hey guys, in this epic segment, we are making some benzoic acid from sodium benzoate. This is a good example of regenerating an acid from its salt form.

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[laserfloyd]

The crystallization was particularly cool to watch.

[jamesleroy]

Haha five years too late, but this video directly helped me in my organic chemistry class. My lab professor sucks, so I always look online and found this delightful video. Had to make some changes obviously, but this definitely made the process for my extraction lab much easier. Thanks for all of your content.

[fpm]

I was hoping you would synthesise benzoic acid from potassium permanganate, HCl and toluene. This approach is more interesting.

[claaaaams]

So hype for the new channel. Thanks for the amazing content you create.

[Drumsticks]

2 things I learned in my apprenticeship: 1) Water gas carries benzoic acid, so you shouldn’t just boil water without covering the beaker since you’ll use some amount of BA. 2) Don’t use a metal spatula for acidic products since acids may react with metals, it will impurify the product. But that’s simply what i was thought, what do you think?

[rsvh]

to get out even more of the impuritys we add activated charcoal to the dissolved benzoic acid and do a hot flitration after letting it cook for 20min on reflux (dont let it boil over, its a mess). for the recrytalisation we only put the clear solution on ice to get it to below 10 degrees C (the colder the better, as long as it doesnt start freezing) and vaccum filtrate and wash it (with cold water) like you did but slower to prevent loss. yield is between 90-98% (depending on workquality) with a purtiy above 99.5%.

[yt]

I tried drying my selfmade benzoic acid in a toaster oven which I set to 110°C. Turns out the ovens temperature control isn't very accurate, since it all melted and a good bit of it started to kind of evaporate and form long thin crystals all over the inside of the oven. Clean up is gonna be fun.

[shanthisiva]

Can I store benzoic acid in plastic container?

[salaam]

Thank you . I’m doing this practical in 2 days . This video was very useful .

[CWA]

Did you measure the melting point of your final product? It would be interesting to see how it compares to the literature value.

[nenben]

I always wondered if I could do any of these synthesis with food grade chemicals making them safer for use. some things I know I can't do that with, because of purity or the actual product is dangerous.

[dmitrygrey]

Dehumidifier could be used to speed up the drying process

[BuickDoc]

What I think you need to do is to calibrate your thermometer. You will need 3-4 high purity solids whose melting points you know. You already have one, benzoic acid. Using your thermometer, determine the 'indicated' melting points of the standards vs the known melting points. This gives you a graph you can use to adjust any indicated thermometer reading back to a more accurate temperature. Speaking of purity, have you thought of looking into zone melting? For thermally stable compounds, you can achieve some absolutely stunning purities.

[VerbenaIDK]

i plan on someday making something similar to make phenol for picrid acid synthesis, this will definitively be useful, thank you!

[jebug]

Benzoyl Peroxide is also used to initiate the polymerization of polystyrene, so you could use it for that. :>

I probably would have just done split-cell electrolysis to get benzoic acid and sodium hydroxide, but that probably wouldn't have as high of a yield and probably wouldn't be all that pure.

[LIVEMETRIX]

using this to help me synthesize up some dibenzoylmorphine, similar to heroin (diacetylmorphine) but instead of acetyl groups it’s got benzoyl groups

[randomx]

Watched this after using listerine and founding out that this is one of it's compound :v

[shrikesavadithya]

hey is it possible for you to do a video series on different types of things usually done in chemistry reactions such as neutralization or any other common method . i am student and avid fan of chemistry . so i can mostly grasp what you say but when i learn about all this in school . it turns to a different level of understanding . if this not possible due to equipment reasons or any other hiccups, do let me know . all i am saying is that it would greatly help students understand your videos and other videos . also any other interesting conversion such as ethene to ethane or other organic hydrocarbons . very interested in those as my chemistry teacher said they are really expensive to obtain . i know of a few basic study purpose reactions that can be done for ethene to ethane . i know that ethene is more expensive but hey i am not aware of other reactions . but a suggestion would be helpful . a fellow student to another, we are all in this for learning .

[miyewsid]

question: can it be touched? cs it looked sharp. i wonder its similar to glass wool? thanks

[sarkar]

which porosity sintered disc is suitable for benzoic acid