Thalamite

Thalamite is an extremely useful compound, which can be quickly, and easily produced from phthalic anhydride, the anhydride itself if, a common chemical, or you can also produce it yourself, by heating phthalic acid, until it forms a melt, the phthalic anhydride, should be an amorphous white solid, like, this, if you have crystals then your phthalic anhydride has, probably slowly absorbed water from the air and turned back, into phthalic acid, in which case you will have,

to, melt it and convert back into the anhydride again, start by weighing out, 35 grams of anhydride, there are two ways to produce thalamite, one involves extended, heating with ammonia solution, the other method uses urea, and, we find this to be the more convenient way,

weighed out 11.5 grams of urea crystals which if pure, should look like this,

mix the thalamite and urea together, and finally crush in, make as homogenous as possible, using a coffee grinder is, ideal,

the result should be a very fine dry white powder,

set up a 500 ml flask on a hot plate and, add the powder to the flask,

make sure you use a 500 ml flask at least, you'll see why later,

heat the flask strongly, and soon the mixture will,

start, to melt, as a small amount of the anhydride vaporizes it will,

form beautiful cobweb crystals in the flask, the vapors are irritating, and ammonia will start to be,

produced, so have ventilation set up, the cobwebs increase in intensity, and the bubbling becomes stronger,

finally, after around 10 to 15 minutes the reaction finishes,

in an orgasmic bubbling climax, filling the flask with white, product,

leave the flask until it is warm, then add 150,

ml of hot water,

use a spatula and break up the product in the,

flask to form a slurry,

our product contains impurities such as phthalic acid and urea,

however these are water soluble,

pour the contents into a bowl,

a beaker, and wash the flask,

with an extra 100 ml of hot water,

stir the,

mixture well and break up all the lumps to form,

a crystalline white powder,

set up for vacuum filtration, and filter the product,

once filtered wash the solid product twice with 100 ml,

of warm water,

drey on the pump and then place in an oven,

at 150 degrees C to dry for a few hours,

until constant weight is achieved,

here's our final dry product,

31.3 grams was obtained which,

is a 90% yield,

thalamide can be used as a starting point for many,

fun compounds including,

acetoic anhydride,

anthranilic acid,

and enbromothalamide,