Turning paint thinner into cherry soda

Summary by Krater

The creator attempts to extract benzaldehyde, the cherry flavor chemical, from paint thinner containing toluene using chemistry procedures. After multiple failed attempts and unexpected explosions using different solvents, the creator successfully produces benzaldehyde using carbon tetrachloride and sodium bisulfite.

From the video

Answers: Can you make cherry flavor from paint thinner?

• extracting benzaldehyde from paint thinner
• toluene to benzaldehyde conversion
• Étard reaction
• dealing with chemical explosions in the lab
• purifying benzaldehyde with sodium bisulfite

Ingredients

• 10 g toluene paint thinner
• 40 mL DCM
• 15 mL chromyl chloride
• 1.7 g sodium bisulfite
• 4 mL water
• carbon tetrachloride
• hydrochloric acid
• sodium bicarbonate solution
• diethyl ether

What it concludes

• Toluene paint thinner contains toluene which is chemically very similar to benzaldehyde, the cherry flavor chemical.
• Using carbon tetrachloride as a solvent instead of DCM successfully prevents premature decomposition of the Étard complex and yields pure benzaldehyde.
• Sodium bisulfite addition successfully traps benzaldehyde as a bisulfite adduct, separating it from impurities and side products like benzyl chloride.
• NMR analysis confirmed that the final product extracted was pure benzaldehyde.