NurdRage - 2009-05-11
How to make TCPO or bis(2,4,6-trichlorophenyl) oxalate, used in glow stick reactions. WARNING: This procedure should only be performed by, or under the direct supervision of, an experienced chemist. Please refer to the material safety data sheets of all chemicals for their hazards. Synthesis must be performed in a fumehood. The exact same process is used in glow sticks. This is NOT mountain dew. Mountain dew cannot glow like this, it does not have the crucial TCPO chemical or any chemical like that. The reaction will glow in the dark for several minutes if you use ethyl acetate as the solvent. It will glow for several hours if you use diethyl phthalate as the solvent. Thanks for watching! Please subscribe, rate and comment! All the chemicals used in this video were purchased from Alfa Aesar. http://www.alfa.com
I love practical chemistry. I was never any good at the math, and so did not go far in my classes, but I love seeing it in action. Subscriber for life, amigo.
Thanks for the video! I've actually done this synthesis before in organic lab, but with a slightly different protocol (we heated it before filtering and didn't add acetate to slow down the reaction). I am working towards a B.S. in chemistry and plan to pursue a career in pharmacy. However I do have a great passion for organic chemistry. Right now I am feeding it with my laboratory courses and research internships, but I imagine that it will be quite a bit harder once I leave university. [cont.]
I'm super bad at chemistry but I love watching these videos they're so cool!!
Awesome :) Thanks for sharing, your videos are so informative and I appreciate your caution and patience you always show
Hey NurdRage! Do you think you can give us a list of all the chemicals and glassware used during your demonstrations? That would be awesome thank you!
A short question: is it still carcinogenic after the glow chemical reaction (how to deal with the waste)?
These videos are really amazing, and make me glad I am going back to school for chemistry now. Thanks!
I just watched all 125 videos of yours. It took me all day but i totally did it. :) I started watching one, then the next and before i knew it i am watching the ending video in your list. I didn't understand much of it as i am not a chemist or ever really took a liking to it, but you made it awesome!! Thank you :)
I would have subscribed souly as a Brian Posehn fan, but this is truly a satisfying channel. Thank you for everything. Not enough people source when they do cool things; thank you.
wow, epic. very very well done video :) i watch your vids during my chemistry studying breaks at home :D
Hey man, I love these videos, I'm recommending it to my friend too, he'd probably be interested. Pretty awesome stuff it is.
Good old time i still remember watching this when it came out haha
Thank you! I wish you the luck on doing more of these awesome experiments! I am sure to keep checking my subscriptions!
awesome to think of how much effort it takes to find out the chemical reactions it fathoms me to think of how long it probably took someone when they first discovered this mixture
For 700mg of starting material, that's 3.545mmol of 2,4,6-trichlorophenol. You'd need the molecular weights of oxalyl chloride and triethylamine to continue to figure out how much to add. I might add that triethylamine is often found as a liquid, so you'd also need its density to figure out exactly how much to add.
I love you mister nurd! I have always want to learn anything of this nature, but I've not the money or the time sadly (FAR to many doctors visits keep me from it) but you teach it and I can watch it any where! You really are the best (and I say this in that annoying fan girl voice that I would follow with a hug lol) but no kidding you are some what of hero and even if I'm not as bright as that glow stick you make me want to try to be :D I just won't to thank you :)
To dry toluene you can perform an azeotropic distillation or chemical drying with the sodium benzophenone method, molecular sieves also work well.
At the risk of sounding like an egomaniac: I'm so awesome i don't need to make meth. I can make far more cooler things.
Well done NurdRage. Keep up the good work.
I wish we would start learning these things in highschool :( I'm in Chemistry now, so all the things you're saying are kind of making sense. I just don't understand the names of the chemicals and the different structures. We've just started learning about different suffixes and prefixes. Also, why do you mask your voice? Anyway, great videos, I enjoy watching them and seeing all the cool reactions that occur :P
Question, as someone who hasn't dealt with chemistry in a long time: Something like TCPO speeds up the reaction and makes things much brighter... but in the process, also makes the glow process take less time overall, right? As in, that bottle will fade a lot sooner than if you hadn't used TCPO?
Lmao. Damn. This gets down. I was a genius at intermediate Chemistry but never caught and interest in it. Therefore never took any advanced chemistry classes but after watching this video it seemed like it was going to just get more fun. No problem my brother ended up becoming a biologist so I think he has a clue in how to do this.
When you're stuck in a dark place w/ the need of light to survive and to find a way out, with the little time you have to survive, remember this super fast and easy process on making light :D
This sounds like you're making drugs...
you pleb
Drug are chemicals but not all chemicals are drugs.
This is the equivalent of calling a spider an insect.
Its on a hot plate magnetic stirrer. There are two dials on it, one for heat and one to spin the magnet which is how the bar spins inside it.
Interestingly, it is found in the antiseptic TCP (TriChloroPhenol :P) but is only present in very small quantities.
NurdRage would love to see a 'how to make' video on organic dyes, easiest color to make, hopefully OTC without having to resort to ordering. that'd be brilliant.
[cont'd] My question is, do you know how I might do advanced chemistry like this without actually working for a lab? Or is there any way to obtain these reagents without affiliation with a business or university? Or do you maintain that if I really enjoyed this stuff then I would ditch pharmacy and pursue research? Thanks again. Please show us more syntheses.
@NurdRage I haven't done it at all because I don't have any access to those chemicals, I just had an occasion to smell an actual inside of a glow stick and... it wasn't pretty :P Overall this is very interesting and if I were able to, I would definitely replicate it! Thanks for your videos, I enjoy watching your experiments.
TCPO? wasn't that the GAY droid from Star Wars? ;)
C-3PO
Sister... err.. thing.
I... Am going to see whether I can do this at my school next year... By any chance would you be able to supply the amounts you use of each chemical in the description of future videos? Regardless, thank you for the awesomeness.
This is cool! I'm finally about to start my dream college, starting of in the, as we call it, laboratory technicals or something. I don't know the English or American equivalent. And after 1 year I can go on in the Bio-Medical research. Which is my dream. And the stuff I see in your vids, are just making me more eager for the vacation to be over!
Question: Is there another chemical that you can use as a substitute for the TCPO?
How do you calculate the amounts of Triethylamine and oxalyl chloride for each batch of TCPO?
this is truly fascinating and i wish i could do this at if i had access to materials to do this. but i got about 4 and a half years till college
I only have a really basic knowledge of chemestry and honestly have no clue what you are saying so i wont even attempt any of these videos. But what you are doing is so freaking cool. Keep it up and i will look back often for new videos. I bet i could show this to some people who have absolutely no interest in science what so ever and they would be enthralled.
Depends on where you buy it. The companies that will sell in small quantities usually sell in the range of $5/g to $25/g. This is because it's medical grade used for disease diagnosis. The cheaper stuff can only be bought in bulk. (like multi-ton bulk)
Awesome video. I was wondering if you could tell me where you got that rubber septum that you attached to the flask. That seems like a really useful thing, but I've been looking around and i can't seem to find anywhere that sells them. If you could tell me it'd be great.
It glows due to the energy production during the reaction of the chemicals, and the fluorescent dye converts that energy into light. It is explained quite well in the next video.
That is so cool, I wish I had the tools to do that.
i love chemistry and must say that blew me away. thinks for uploading!!
This is one of those things that i have no experience in but would love to learn. Can i get a full list of chemicals and measurements?
Oddly enough I find myself more intrigued by the magnetic stir bar. I would love to do experiments like these if given the space and equipment. Of course I do not know any experienced chemists, nor do I have near enough half of any safety equipments. The second option is stupidity: an option I wont opt for. Those reasons alone make me glad that there are videos like these that explains and shows how these things work (including safety) so concisely.
To scale this up to make more TCPO, do you have to do this molecularly or mathmatically? for example: Mathmatically is like you multiply the ingredients by a certain number...
Excellent video, im pretty upset i didn't see this before my chem 102 class ended
I have a question about obtaining TCPO. I know it'd be alot more expensive to make it than to just buy it online. But I'm wandering if you could actually get TCPO by opening a glowstick (where the Hydrogen Peroxide hasn't been mixed with the sollution yet), and somehow seperate the TCPO from all the other liquids in the sollution. I know the yield would be very small, but could it be possible?
Since trichlorophenol is pretty acidic (pKa ~6) , do you think the color change upon adding triethylamine (pKa ~11) is due to formation of the phenoxide rather than due to impurities?
You could use flexible clear pvc tubing... it would be so epic.
Spanky Schooler - 2014-01-19
Absolutely fascinating. I only wish my chemistry teachers used experiments such as this to keep my attention in college. I feel like I have learned more watching your videos than I did in 4 years of college. Thank you very much.