video tutorial Preparation of potassium phthalimide

Name: video tutorial - Preparation of potassium phthalimide
Uploaded: 2025-12-11T09:03:44.246Z
Duration: 6 min 21 s
Description: In this video we'll prepare potassium thalimide, the reagent we plan to use in a future video....To start we weighed out 17.5 grams of thalimide. Check out our other video for details of how to make this yourself from phthalic anhydride.

Preparation of potassium thalimide from thalimide by reacting with potassium hydroxide in ethanol.
Starting materials: 17.5 g thalimide, 8 g KOH (1.2× molar excess).
Solvent: ethanol; solution heated to about 75 °C; thalimide added gradually to avoid boiling.
Reaction yielded a suspension; after about 1 h a fine powder formed.
Workup: vacuum filtration, washing with absolute ethanol, drying to yield 23 g potassium thalimide (nearly quantitative).
Product: slightly damp, a fine powder with a faint yellow/green tint.
Solubility test: potassium thalimide dissolves in cold water to give a clear solution; thalimide itself is insoluble in cold water.
Acid-base test: adding dilute sulfuric acid reform thalimide as an insoluble precipitate, demonstrating thalimide can act as an acid (donating H+).
Noted that potassium thalimide can be used in synthesis of primary amines (to be shown in a future video).