I'm skeptical that there is some secret Russian method that works just awesome to benignly reduce only the p-NT, without side reactions...by just
boiling a nearly random amount of S and NaOH, etc...BTW, I scanned the content I did because I wasted a lot of time and chemicals following throwaway
lines lacking necessary context and details [not for others to profit from my OCR] and hacking away like it's that easy. At least if you follow
directions and fail, you can more handily blame someone else.
In the old days some p-toluidine makers thought it was best to reduce the whole lot and obtain the p-toluidine from the mixture as the hydrate, even
though the nitrotoluenes can be easily separated from each other.
AFAIK the o-toluidine oxalate method is best used to purify o-toluidine, after steam and distilling and cooling methods at different points have left
one with substantially pure o-isomer already...you don't really know what would be left over in this particular residue, and I would hesitate to label
it p-toluidine. |