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this post was submitted on 23 May 2024
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I remember in my orgo chemistry lab we were once running an experiment to add a single nitrate group to Toluene as part of a larger synthesis, and someone pointed out that if we left the reaction going too long, things could go boom.
Yeah, it's that sort of nasty reaction. Nitration is exothermic and its ratio depends on temperature, so all you need to get it exploding is to let the ice melt.
...I think we did it on a hotplate.
Maybe we were using toluene as a solvent or something. It's been quite a while.
You said that you only did the first nitration, right? You were probably using slightly less concentrated ingredients then. Doing it on a hotplate with oleum and fuming nitric (required for all three nitrations) is madness.
Yeah that probably makes more sense. I think we were just using bog standard sulfuric acid and nitric acid.