Turning Styrofoam into Benzene

[@kotorybeusz7246]

when the chemistry youtuber asks for chemisty tips, you know its getting dangerous

[@Brand-eo8gv]

I know shaking the toluene with KMnO4 with your hands was for the meme, but just in case it wasn't: toluene can pretty easily penetrate most thin gloves (latex,butyl), neoprene/nitrile are slightly better but toluene will still penetrate after about a minute after contact, so they should be removed/replaced quickly after contact. Not nearly as scary as benzene but you still don't want it in contact with your skin for a long time

[@thegold3538]

Damn you have become on of the big chemistry youtuber now. You can afford to destroy some of you glassware, like nilered constantly does

[@Prussian_Blue]

That flask was really cheap since it was with a uncut joint, i did use teflon tape for it though.

[@thegold3538]

Well then I take it back. Its only your videos that is on par with nilered

[@Duda286]

@@thegold3538 you mean nile green

[@mrgreenguy]

@@Duda286 I've been summoned

[@Duda286]

@@mrgreenguy YES MR GREEN

[@uzlp7164]

hello as a man with chem degree, your are teaching me crack man chemistry and I am enjoying every second of it Jerry.

[@robotsupurgedenkacanorumce2229]

benzene ITS BACK!

[@LordBrainz]

Long life to benzene, best compound ❤❤

[@spiderdude2099]

*REMEMBER BENZENE!!!!*

[@Moeflyer6213]

C6H6

[@robertnichols2283]

I’m old enough to remember when we could just go out and buy benzene And carbon tetrachloride too

[@thegold3538]

You must be old then/s

[@robertnichols2283]

@@thegold3538 this was in the late 50’s / early 60’s So, yeah, I’m old

[@tarus94]

For what was it used back then?

[@laurensvisser7623]

@@tarus94 Carbon tetrachloride is a fantastic solvent for many substances, and a fire extinguishing agent. Too bad it's also very carcinogenic, and if you put out fires with it you can accidentally decompose it into phosgene. Today it's used in small amounts in animal testing to reliably induce cancer in the test animals, horrifying stuff. Benzene is also good solvent and paint thinner, but carcinogenic.

[@PolishJeK]

@@tarus94carbon tet was in fire extinguishers, and benzene was probably used as fuel for lamps. I’m not sure about the benzene though, don’t quote me

[@supahmo]

2:20 more like ethyl benzene

[@PranavViswanathan]

Also at 0:06

[@rocketlauncher6207]

6:50 Sodium carbonate is incorrect about as well

[@The_carrot_man]

prussian blue is part of the highest orders of (shitty)shed chemistry, 3% yield and a definitely colorless liquid certainly is impressive. better than what i could've achieved with just high school level lab experience lol

[@AbdullahMalik-yr2yr]

at 2:20 styrene is an ethene molecule attached to benzene, not ethane.

[@kim-6241]

Can you please teach me how to become as unhinged as you are and also how to survive organic chemistry? Any unhinged memory tricks you got?

[@Makem12]

I just love your channel and videos. Keep up the good work.

[@bedauerlichereinzelfall4043]

When you mix the oxidizer with water and then with the product You want to oxidize, you could use a big seperating funnel instead of erlenmeyer, by that you can shake your reaction mixture more easy and nothing of it gets in contact with your gloves aswell . You only have to ventilate it from time to time while shaking

[@nvnrmchl]

4:16 i was thinking potassum and the benzene ring wouldnt coordinate due to size. kinda like hard-soft acid bases. very good vid makes me wanna use my chem glassware for a project!

[@capus89]

If you want to be less concerned about the glass in the final step, you can use an empty paint can,the heated NaOH wont disslove it, and it can take a lot more heat thus increasing the yield

[@vitskotak3880]

Please, tidy up your lab, oherwise great content!

[@edoardoberardocco]

Finally second part

[@y33t23]

It's a fun synthesis way for sure, but if you really needed a bunch of Benzene, directly buying Sodium Benzoate for less than 10€ a kilo would be way cheaper than wasting precious hard to get potassium permanganate.

[@PackthatcameBack]

Acetone is immensely effective at dissolving Styrofoam and once it's all in solution you just leave it somewhere well-ventilated for a few hours and you'll be left with a nice and solid bar of polystyrene

[@jmi967]

Your accent makes it sound like you’re saying “hitting” instead of “heating” which makes for some hilarious mental imagery. 😂❤

[@epicname1549]

The Best part of the comment section is that you all just showed up.. 10 years later. LOL This was clearly before your time. Thank you anyways.

[@schinderiapraemeturus6239]

Suggestion for heating glassware if you're using a torch- place the flask inside a steel can with a couple inches of sand in the bottlm, fill the space around the flask with more sand. This will distribute the heat and prevent glass from cracking.

[@KateHikes1933]

My man knows about the walls changing color. Based.

[@danielbickford3458]

My brother, KZbin channel makeshift minis, has used acetone to dissolve styrofoam to put into a mold and make little minis with.

[@christopherleubner6633]

Pyrolysis with some calcium oxide and iron oxide with a little copper added converts it to mostly benzene with some styrene mixed in.

[@arved-6939]

At 2:19 you messed up the formula for stryrene, you are missing the double bond.

[@FirstLast-oe2jm]

it's worth noting that 200g of polystyrene probably had some level of intentional impurity - lots of industries will add either structural elements or flame dampening elements. I'm not sure what the selection criteria are for different use cases of styrofoam but I'm certain the information exists in some corporate file on the internet somewhere

[@MrYellowOffical]

Good old fashion benzene baby

[@cloudly_boi7803]

Gotta love some good old cr@ckhead chemistry setup, love your vids man :D

[@LtLolcopter]

YES BEEN WAITING FOR THIS VID!!!

[@XYZ-dz2ox]

i am still waiting for video where he will add a straight 3 member carbon chain with methylaminish thing attached to the middle carbon of the chain to the benzene

[@iainfreeman5112]

Was toluene easy to get hold of? I’d personally would have used acetone. Only because I would get nail polish remover from the supermarket. But you’re the expert! Especially compared to me.

[@vahannema]

toluene is used as a paint thinner, so you could probably find that at a hardware store

[@francescovita2453]

​@@vahannemaNot in EU 😔

[@jimparsons6803]

Sodium benzoate is pretty useful and valuable all by itself. I think that NAPALM is more like aluminum soap that is then mixed with gas. So, technically, your legal on that point. I've heard about something like this before, been a while, but the benzoate is mixed with lime and then heated, in a tin can? You get CaCO3 and benzene. Like your lab set up.

[@archuserbytheway]

7:20 mhmm buraki

[@killmimes]

You are the reason we cant have nice things!

[@andrews.4780]

Ayyy he finally completed the project 😌

[@mrgreenguy]

I'm a little confused where all your potential yield was lost? to the air? Maybe the permanganate didn't completely react? Seems odd to me. I also clicked on this video because I have a lottt of styrofoam i've just dissolved into acetone and not sure what to do with lol. I think KZbin knows

[@Prussian_Blue]

Well, the shitty yield is mostly due to the last step when i was decarboxylating the benzoate, that's because the benzoate and hydroxide wasn't very well mixed, it wouldn't be a problem if i've chosen a flask that was apprioporate size, but i didnt have one because ive had glassware shortages back then. also glass is a really bad choice not only due to the molten NaOH leaching into the glass. also because the glass vessel i've chose was too big and the heat was spread out unevenly and it started cracking, if you want to have a better yield, use a coffee grinder or something to mix the benzoate and hydroxide evenly, and you can sprinkle in some calcium oxide for extra spice. also im not sure if you remember this, but ive once done those out of context compilation videos when i was starting out and ive made one on you and i remember you leaving a comment on it when you were still known as nilegreen lol. also the permanganate part should be mostly decent yield, but ive added a little bit less, because ive ran outta it, you can improve the yield, by refluxing longer than i did.

[@mrgreenguy]

@@Prussian_Blue Ah that's cool! Thanks for the insightful reply. I think I might remember the video, but it was a long time ago. I've been coming across your vids every now and again, they're good :)

[@mrgreenguy]

@@Prussian_Blue I'm thinking I might try something like this myself at some point. Hopefully the yield can improve. I've just watched a video where someone else also got similar low yields for some reason but maybe i'll have to see how I do

[@kpunkt98]

If you ever plan on doing some photochemistry - hit me up, I'd be happy to help. (365nm LEDs are really cheap now and make the field much more appealing than Hg-lamps)

[@mythics791]

very cool. Appreciate your time and effort/

[@quadcam24v]

Time to start a Patreon to fund Prussian Blue's electric vacuum pump

[@AllRounder-jx2be]

best you can do to get pure benzene is to take benzoic acid in the most pure form you can get and heat it above 370C ish in a reaction vessel wich has a pressure relief valve. this will generate benzene and CO2 wich escapes through the valve. only open the vessel after it cooled to room temp by itself.

[@jimsvideos7201]

3% proves the process works and that's enough.

[@ahmadmunibhanifi3546]

Thanks it was useful for me...

[@tntomega]

you can use refrigerator compressor for vacuum

[@dis_guy7]

Bro your chemistry is pretty good. Are you like asking for genuine help on chemistry or just joking

[@xxxm981]

Is there actually a way to get toluene from plastic or something? Phenol is easy to get, but toluene seems pretty fucking hard.

[@again5t.your53lf6]

I know those gloves are probably rated to handle toluene but dunking your hand into that shit got me cringing 😂

[@oscarlama]

Your formula for styrene is wrong, it shows ethylbenzene

[@isaal-magyari9203]

toluene makes up 25-30% of gasoline where I live, not a small portion

[@duzebonio7084]

Ta butelka hydraulika na ziemi

[@Ir8Xe]

Ok, styrene and ethyl benzene are not the same .

[@Auroral_Anomaly]

Styrofoam into camcer juice?😁😁😋

[@Dlab_s]

Was that your fume hood

[@CloudCuckooKing]

You got your styrene stick diagram a little funny, it's ethylbenzene instead of vinylbenzene

[@kpunkt98]

It's so sad that benzene basically can't be used anymore. It's such a nice solvent and toluene really can't compete, especially when it comes to radical reactions :/

[@TheFireGoose]

Beans

[@muzaffaryusupov6435]

Please try to make benzene from calcium carbide acetylene gas

[@darkmann12]

That is *not* a coffee grinder lol

[@CaptainCandycorn]

Is this a reupload

[@ahuman2533]

These are hilarious

[@muha0644]

But why? If you already have toluene, just turn it into benzene. Why bother with all this complication?

[@captainchicky3744]

Please for the love of god red is till your styrene bruh

[@PyroRob69]

Better off doing a fractional distillation on gasoline rather than spending a weekend to reduce a trash can full of styrofoam to 5mL's of dubious quality benzene :)

[@OffGridInvestor]

There's a slight chance I might have been busted at school with Styrofoam after it was put in gasoline and dried. The turds got a skeleton key out, got it out of my locker and lit it up while I was in class! And then accused me using the N word. I was telling my nieces the other day because this was 25 years ago

[@starp-r]

You have the wrong styrene formula. A double bond is needed CH=CH2

[@R-Tex.]

Face reveal!!!!!!

[@filipdereniowski9239]

It makes no sense. It is easier to oxidize toluene than styrene

[@Prussian_Blue]

dont kill me, i did it for da meme!!!

[@skyethebi]

@@Prussian_Blueit would’ve been even funnier if you originally dissolved the styrofoam in benzene

[@devnitrate]

Will the legend respond ?

[@Prussian_Blue]

no

[@neb_setabed]

Didn't worry everyone I'll respond

[@romulus2225]

C-

[@egomsimp5659]

gib mir benzin

[@rocketlauncher6207]

So you used toluene, which is methybenzene (aka benzene but better) to make benzene(aka toluene but worse) from Polystyrene. What a waste 🤦. Atleast could have used acetone

[@snowfish7294]

get an electric pump or a donkey

[@Mad_chm]

امورش پخت و پز مت در کانال

[@lazars.4419]