Phenol

Phenol, also known as carbolic acid, is an aromatic compound. It exists as volatile clear-white crystals. It acts as a very weak acid, but is about 1 million times more acidic then most straight-chain alcohols. Phenol can be used to prepare picric acid and bisphenol A, which I intend to make at some point.

Phenol itself can be made via the decarboxylation of salicylic acid. I decided to try this out.

I added 3g of salicylic acid to a round-bottom flask. To the flask I attached a condenser and under the setup I placed a hotplate. I heated the salicylic acid until it began to melt and give off carbon dioxide. Soon after this, crystals started forming on the sides of the flask. I kept heating until carbon dioxide stopped forming, at which point I left the phenol to cool and solidify. I collected the phenol. It was slightly brown in colour so I think I may have burnt it a bit. Fortunately this was minimal and the product still seems fairly pure. I recrystallized the phenol from acetone and dried it. I received 2g of phenol, which is a 98% yield.

C7H6O3 ===> C6H6O + CO2