Response to Anyone know how to make Chlorquinol?

Hi Ed.
I think you'd need a chemistry set that LaRoche would be proud of, to reliably produce Chlorquinol from Hydroquinone.
On paper, it doesn't look too difficult. Just the addition of a Chlorine radical in the ortho position on the Benzene ring.
That might be achieved by passing Chlorine gas over Hydroquinone, and then neutralising the Hydrochloric acid that would be formed, or electrolysising a solution of common salt and Hydroquinone, and neutralising the Sodium Hydroxide(?) bi-product. The real difficulty, I imagine, comes in preventing the formation of products like 2:5 dichloro - dihydroxy benzene (which is also a developer, but a very active one that's prone to fog formation), or of simply displacing Hydroquinone's Hydroxyl radicals by Chlorine. This would form para-dichlorobenzene, which has no developing ability as far as I know.
I can't vouch that any of the above methods would work at all, really. My knowledge of organic chemistry only extends to photographic applications, and perhaps there's any easy and reliable way to do it.

Have you tried the addition of Ammonium Chloride to an M-Q or Hydroquinone developer, as suggested on the forum a few weeks ago? That gives a very warm-toned result.
Maybe Chlorquinol is even one of the byproducts formed, along with an aminophenol of some sort.

[ Previous | Next ]