video thumbnail 7:54
Making oxalic acid from cane sugar

2016-06-08

[public] 223K views, 5.47K likes, 52.0 dislikes audio only

4K

Here we do a scaled up version of the oxalic acid synthesis that ChemPlayer did. The table sugar (sucrose) is oxidized using nitric acid.

This is a pretty dirty reaction and it is not very efficient. Oxalic acid has various uses, but I want to use it to make oxalyl chloride, which will in turn be used to make TCPO which is used in glow stick.

The followup video to this one would be the azeotropic distillation of oxalic acid to dry it. In order to make oxalyl chloride, we need very dry oxalic acid (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAt9lO82s-0)

ChemPlayer video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAdd4iMfj30

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