video tutorial Potassium chlorochromate and oxidation of benzyl alcohol

Name: video tutorial - Potassium chlorochromate and oxidation of benzyl alcohol
Uploaded: 2025-12-11T09:03:44.074Z
Duration: 13 min 21 s
Description: We made potassium dichromate in a previous video, so check this out for details of how...We won't show you how to convert this to pure benzaldehyde because we've done this before in a couple of videos.

Prepared potassium chlorochromate by reacting potassium dichromate with concentrated hydrochloric acid, crystallizing to yield 75 g of product as sharp orange crystals.
Observed that the reagent can release hydrogen chloride vapors and that reactions with strong acids can form toxic species like chromyl chloride; notable odors reported during the benzaldehyde formation.
Used potassium chlorochromate to oxidize benzyl alcohol to benzaldehyde in dichloromethane, with the reaction kept under about 30 °C by diluting with DCM to moderate vigor and lower boiling point for cooling.
Workup involved dilution with water, filtration, washing with water and additional DCM, and purification via formation of a sodium bisulfite adduct; the white crystalline adduct was obtained (19.5 g) with a 67% yield; conversion to pure benzaldehyde was not shown here (covered in prior videos).
Overall: the reagent is easy to prepare and use, giving a good yield, though the process is somewhat messy and entails handling toxic chromium species.