Sciencemadness Discussion Board

naturally occuring organic peroxide Ascaridole

symboom - 30-4-2016 at 07:07

This seems like an interesting compound

Did not know explosive compounds could be found In nature

Does anyone know of any other more common organic peroxide compounds or someone who has do extraction of Ascaridole
This make me think of exploding plants

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ascaridole

The first laboratory synthesis was demonstrated in 1944 by Günther Schenck and Karl Ziegler and might be regarded as mimicking the natural production of ascaridole. The process starts from α-terpinene which reacts with oxygen under the influence of chlorophyll and light. Under these conditions singlet oxygen is generated which reacts in a Diels-Alder reaction with the diene system in the terpinene.[7][8][9] Since 1945, this reaction has been adopted into the industry for large-scale production of ascaridole in Germany.

α-terpinene is found in cumin and tea tree oil


Maybe even naturally occurring nitrate compound from that is produced from a plant

unionised - 30-4-2016 at 08:00

Is it just me, or does it look like it is wearing spectacles?


ascaridole.png - 28kB

crystal grower - 30-4-2016 at 08:11

Really intellectual compound :P.

mayko - 30-4-2016 at 08:18

A while back, I ran across a mention to naturally occurring polyacetylene compounds in a review of fungal biochemistry, which were explosive upon isolation. Here are the references from that passage.



polyacetylenes.jpg - 183kB

Metacelsus - 30-4-2016 at 09:34

I'm doing a lot of work with tetraynes these days, and I remember reading that paper and getting freaked out. Thankfully, I haven't had any explosions; the things I'm working with are stable below roughly 75 C (and when they're heated in solution, they do interesting cyclization reactions instead of exploding.)

Hydrogen peroxide is produced biologically, and acetone is as well (from the ketone body acetoacetate).
I wonder if an enzyme could make acetone peroxide.

[Edited on 4-30-2016 by Metacelsus]

phlogiston - 30-4-2016 at 14:00

The amazing bombardier beetle can fight of attackers with a jet of very hot and irritating gas which it generates by mixing hydrogen peroxide and hydroquinone.

Perhaps in the future it may be possible to design explosive plants to use as landmines. Plant some seeds and wait. Scarily cheap. Wouldn't work well in the desert though.