Examples of Miscellaneous Reactions of Aromatic Compounds 2

2. Reaction of : Toluene + Nitric Acid

Let's make a bomb!!

First, nice to meet you, Toluene.

Toluene (or toluol) is Benzene that has been replaced its Hydrogen with methyl (CH₃.) For the process, we can do Friedel–Crafts reaction (but no details will be explained here.) Toluene's pictures :

In the reaction to create the bomb, we need to replace another three nonneighboring Toluene's Hydrogen with NO₂. In the first time, we use H₂SO4 and HNO₃ (Nitric Acid) to have mono-nitrotoluene or MNT from Toluene. Do Nitration again to MNT then we will get  dinitrotoluene or DNT. Last, use dehydrate mixture of HNO₃ and H₂S₂O7 with DNT and we will get trinitrotoluene or TNT.

Conclusion : replace Hydrogen with NO₂ 3 times.

And well, trinitrotoluene or TNT (C₆H₂(NO₂)₃CH₃ as shown at the right side) is exactly the one we commonly hear as a bomb.


Refrerences :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toluene
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinitrotoluene
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mononitrotoluene