Sciencemadness Discussion Board

What can i make from this compounds?

vano - 9-6-2022 at 09:59

Hello! I want to make something interesting from these compounds, I don't want polymers. I will get any idea.

4,4'-Dichlorobiphenyl
Diphenyl sulfone
4,4'-Dichlorodiphenyl sulfone
4,4′-(Propane-2,2-diyl)diphenol

Texium - 9-6-2022 at 10:40

Unfortunately, these aren't particularly versatile compounds. Diphenyl sulfone is not very interesting itself, but would be more useful if you could reduce it to diphenyl sulfide. The only reference I could find for that uses samarium(II) iodide-HMPA conditions, which is expensive and difficult to access. I know you have samarium metal, so it could actually be something to try, but there are easier and more practical ways to get to diphenyl sulfide and/or thiophenol for the amateur, and also much more interesting things to do with SmI2.

The biphenyl is even less interesting. I could find barely anything that wasn't either polymer related or using cross-coupling reactions (Buchwald-Hartwig, Negishi, etc) to make some obscure and probably not-too-interesting ligands. Only paper that looked remotely interesting is using a cobalt-catalyzed carbonylation to convert it to the marginally more interesting dicarboxylic acid. I can't access the paper, and it's in Russian, but here is the reference in case you want to try and find it:

Manufacture of aromatic acids and recycling of polychlorobiphenyl dioxin-like dielectrics by carbonylation of aryl halides
T. Zhesko
ISSN: 0028-2421
Neftekhimiya , 2007, Vol.47(4), p.296-300

vano - 9-6-2022 at 11:13

Thank you Texium so much!

DraconicAcid - 9-6-2022 at 11:16

Chlorides don't work very well in Grignards, otherwise I'sd suggest making a carboxylic acid out of the dichlorobiphenyl.

vano - 9-6-2022 at 11:38

Thank you DraconicAcid for your advice!

DraconicAcid - 9-6-2022 at 12:14

Hmmm...

If you nitrate the dichlorodiphenyl, you should get one nitro group on each ring, ortho to the other phenyl group. Reduce that to a diamine, and that would be an interesting chelating ligand.

vano - 9-6-2022 at 21:20

interesnting idea. thanks!

Mateo_swe - 10-6-2022 at 07:24

Are you absolutely restricted to these compounds or just got them and wanted to use them or something like a school assignment project?

There are so many things you can do with other very easily available OTC chemicals if you just tell what types of things that interests you.
For example smell and taste chemistry, firework and energetics, make element samples, chemiluminescence (reactions that produce light in different colors and intensity), electrochemical cells, pharmaceuticals etc, etc...

vano - 10-6-2022 at 07:34

thank you!. I received them as a gift. Here are just the compounds I can not use in anything.



[Edited on 10-6-2022 by vano]

clearly_not_atara - 10-6-2022 at 08:40

Bisphenol A? You can make frogs gay :D

Aryl chlorides are indeed very inert. Unsubstituted biphenyl, though, is an electron-transfer catalyst that can assist the production of metal nanoparticles. Unfortunately, those chlorides get in the way. The dehalogenation might be effected with magnesium in methanol:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S004040391...

So I wouldn't say the biphenyl is totally uninteresting. Metal nanoparticles are themselves just a step in some other process, though, usually. The usual preparation is:

anhydrous metal chloride in ether + sodium + biphenyl >> nanoparticles in ether + NaCl

vano - 10-6-2022 at 08:57

Interesting. thank you!

clearly_not_atara - 28-12-2022 at 11:31

I found this thread again because I had identified diphenyl sulfone (lit bp 374 C) as a possible high-temperature "oil bath" liquid, possibly supporting reactions up to 350 C. Unfortunately, I have not found any good information about the autoignition temperature or general air-stability of Ph2SO2 at this temperature though an MSDS from Merck gives the autoignition point of fluorenone as 608 C, which is promising.

dawt - 9-1-2023 at 23:34

Meh, I tried using dimethyl sulfone as a bath and it smoked a LOT well below it's bp.

andyloris - 10-1-2023 at 09:01

Did you mean diphenyl sulfone instead of dimethyl sulfone ?