Sciencemadness Discussion Board

Uses for vanillin?

LD5050 - 23-2-2017 at 06:51

I see a lot of mentioning of vanillin. Chemplayer has a bunch of videos of different things he does to vanillin and videos by Nilered and others who extract Vanillin from artificial flavoring. My question is what kind of things can you do with vanillin? I know its a pre curser to capsacin and I know that you can get MD-P2P from it (I think) but what other uses and things can you do with it? Why is there so much mention of it?

JJay - 23-2-2017 at 07:16

Vanillin is easy to get and cheap, and it is an aromatic compound with three functional groups. I haven't researched this much, but I don't think that a trivial path to MD-P2P from vanillin is known, mainly because it's hard to demethylate. It's useful for demonstrating concepts and testing organic reactions.

mayko - 23-2-2017 at 07:42

You can use it as a TLC stain:

http://www.ochemonline.com/TLC_stains

Sulaiman - 23-2-2017 at 08:42

What a coincidence,
I just spent a few hours watching vanillin videos on YouTube,
some extractions and some reactions,
then an hour or so of literature research,
and I ordered some vanilla pods about one hour ago
(for cooking, and flavouring my tobacco)
and I just came to SM to ask about vanillin uses
as I'm watching 100g vanillin (£5 incl. p&p) on eBay at the moment.

I have a few TLC plates that I want to experiment with but I have not yet got a 254 nm lamp ....

so unless some beautiful use for vanillin arises,
I'll give it a miss for now

Neme - 23-2-2017 at 09:59

Divanyllyl oxalate for some chemiluminiscence.

DraconicAcid - 23-2-2017 at 10:19

I'd like to try making some esters of vanillic acid. They must smell nice.