Cesium

Phenol can be made by decarboxylation of salicylic acid (derived from ASA of course) with NaOH or Ca(OH)2 in a manner that is analagous to the decarboxylation of benzoic acid to yield benzene.

Aside from purchasing it on ebay or the like, are emeralds probably the best, (only?) easily accessible source of beryllium?

Binary cyanides, thiocyanides, carbides, and compounds with similar anions are usually classified as inorganic compounds even though they contain carbon. Semantics, I guess. And even so they would not meet our definition of "metal organic" because they are just salts. Ferrocene is a great example though.

A blue gas? I don't think I ever recall hearing about a gas of this color. This would be what, nitrosyl cyanide?

HNO2 is not very soluble in water. That was what woelen was getting with the dilute sulfuric acid (as NOx gases). I suppose that concentrated sulfuric acid may be powerful enough to oxidize NO2- to NO3-. Upon heating, however, I would still suspect NOx to be formed so obviously that doesn't explain anything.

I followed the directions almost exactly from here: http://cavemanchemistry.com/cavebook/chfertilizer3.html

I know of no method with the mechanism you suggest. However, napthalene can be oxidized to phthalic acid with KMnO4. Then, with NaOH or lime you can decarboxylate the phthalic acid to benzoic acid, and finally to benzene. Sure sounds like a pain to me...but it should be possible.

Yes, woelen, they are merely salts, nothing like a Grignard or organolithium compound, but I was responding to YT's query about copper ethoxide.

This is indeed very fun to do. It's what magician's flash paper is made out of. I've nitrated cotton before with a mix of KNO3 and excess H2SO4. Good for those who don't have nitric acid.

A variety of metal alkoxides exist. See http://www.rareearthproducts.com/catalog/metal_alkoxides_513228_products.htm for example.

Why not make phosphoric acid from a phopshate and sulfuric acid?

Lol, yes, mineral oil...sorry about that.

Air can dissolve in oil and non-polar solvents. For example, sodium is sometimes used to store sodium, but the sodium can still slowly oxidize because oxygen from the air can dissolve in the oil.

Doubtful, it uses the word "alcohol" in many other instances in the book where isopropanol would make no sense.

Hey thanks guys, I'll try both set-ups next time I work with gases.

In order to perform decarboxylation you need to reflux with NaOH or Ca(OH)2 IIRC. I'm not sure how hard it would be to make sure you didn't decarboxylate all the way to benzene. Somebody here probably knows.

Personally, I'd try to decarboxylate it to benzoic acid and then decarboxylate it further to give benzene.

Uh...almost any alcohol; methyl, ethyl, isopropyl phthalates. Both the di and mono esters exist. They are not particularly interesting; phthalate esters are used as an additives to plastics. Common ones are benzyl butyl phthalate and diisobutyl phthalate. Where did you get phthalic acid? As for chloric to perchloric acid, electrolysis may work.

http://www.udmercy.edu/crna/agm/07.htm Looks like it's a mixture of Ba(OH)2 and Ca(OH)2.

It's just more hassle than is really necessary. SO2 is soluble in water so you shouldn't loose much if you take it slow. Woelen, how do you prevent that suck back from occuring? The exact some problem happened to me several times when I was dissolving NO2 in water (from the decomposition of Mg(NO3)2). As soon as I stopped heating, my liquid would get sucked back into the Mg(NO3)2. I quickly learned to remove the tube from the beaker before I stopped heating. I also tried to clamp the tube after heating, but this didn't work too well (the suction was quite powerful).

Mg(OH)2 decomposes at 350C, Ca(OH)2 at 580C, Sr(OH)2 even higher, and Ba(OH)2 boils (780C) before it decomposes.

Do the copper salt thing in solution as suggested. If you don't have CuSO4 or CuCl2 on hand, add some copper (from wire, old parts, etc.) to a mixture of HCl and H2O2 (3% is fine). This will give you a solution of CuCl2- dilute it and then add to zinc.

Check out this page: http://www.teralab.co.uk/Experiments/Luminescence/Luminescence_Page1.htm The guy there made some calcium sulfide, another luminescent compound, and doped it with some sodium/potassium chloride. My best guess would be to add a tiny bit of copper to your zinc and then light the mix with the sulfur.

ZnS is usually doped with small amounts of copper to make it glow in the dark.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glow_sticks