sorry for reviving old thread, but i'd like to give my short input regarding EG and H2SO4..
i attempted to create triethyl borate through EG H2SO4 and H3BO3 in not weighting anything out, it was done on 10mL scale
a small flask was subjected to heating and it eventually turned darkyellowish, a painful gas was present within the flask after it reached decently
high temperature
i mean to call it that dioxane is what gives most of the odor from a fire within a building, and if im not wrong is somewhat relative to the smell of
phenol, i did not note this smell, but rather a painful smell coming very close to the gasous pain from formaldehyde
i have not scaled up this reaction yet but i'd say there are good chances of formaldehyde to be produced from H2SO4 and EG combined thereafter heated,
i guess if the gas would be lead into or together with acetaldehyde hexamine could be formed and be left behind after the excessive acetaldehyde would
be evaporated off could point further towards the existence of formaldehyde from this reaction, i may be lazy for not having looked into other ways of
testing for, prove or disprove formaldehydes presence
i used about 1mL H2SO4 and 10 mL seemingly anhydrous mono-ethyl glycol, flask was capped off with aluminium foil, not sure if the EG managed to boil
even, so it may have been taking place even without reaching EG's boiling point |