Molecules: You'd better learn to live with them.
Polyphosphoric acid is a mixture of phosphoric acids and its anhydrides:
I like it as an acid catalyst in organic synthesis - a lot of people hate it because it's so thick and hard to handle. The stuff is absolutely gooey mess; when you heat it up, it gets down to about the consistency of honey. The neat thing is that lots of stuff will go into it (it is a strong acid goo, after all), but once you quench your reaction with water, your stuff will often crash out.
During a blissful few months, I cranked out a series of Fischer indoles with the stuff. Everything seemed to work!
Comments
It is great stuff - how do you handle it? Because I am working right now with it to dehydrogenate some PAH and it is so messy I am thinking making it for each synthesis in situ - 300 degC, vacuum and whoops goes the H3PO4 - are there any special tools e.g. the honey spoon available?
Posted by: FSE | April 14, 2009 6:19 PM