Recent postsView all

The excitement of discovery
9 Dec 22
Concept-based assessment
13 Nov 22
5+ is different to +5
20 Sep 22
Training students to think criti…
8 Sep 22
Intergalactic-mindedness
15 Jul 22
Some thoughts on the May 2022 IB…
30 May 22
Anti-Markovnikov addition
16 Mar 22
Initial reflections on the new p…
31 Jan 22
Covering the mandatory practical…
26 Nov 21
Greenhouse gas bulletin and COP2…
25 Oct 21
Testing concepts using the H<>
18 Oct 21
“The Strangest Man”
29 Jul 21

2,4-dinitrophenylhydrazine (2,4-DNP)

Wednesday 2 November 2016

Years ago when I first started teaching at Atlantic College I came across a bottle of picric acid in the store room. It had completely dried out and posed a considerable risk of explosion as friction can cause the dry solid to detonate. My way of dealing with it was to carefully add water dropwise as it is stable when wet. It appears now that I should have called in the bomb disposal squad!

Several schools and universities in Wales have had to have controlled explosions to get rid of  both picric acid and 2,4-dinitrophenylhydrazine which is also potentially explosive when dry. 

Swansea University in South Wales where a controlled explosion to destroy picric acid took place on 27 October 2016.

Many schools do still have 2,4-DNP (sometimes also known as 2,4-DNPH) as until recently it appeared on the syllabus of many 16-18 chemistry courses as a way of identifying aldehydes and ketones as they undergo addition-elimination reactions with 2,4-DNP to give orange crystals each with a characteristic melting point. For example it was covered under Assessment Statement H.8 on Further Organic Chemistry on the old 2003- 2008 IB programme

and under G.4.1 on the 2009 programme (the last exam on this syllabus was in November 2015). Nowadays spectroscopic data (Topics 11.3 and 21.1 on the current programme) provide a much easier way to identify aldehydes and ketones.

It may be worth you checking to see whether you have any dry 2,4-DNP in your store cupboards. However do not fall into the same error present in the BBC article which confuses 2,4-DNP with the diet supplement pills DNP (dinitrophenol)!! 



Comments


To post comments you need to log in. If it is your first time you will need to subscribe.