Resorcinol

Resorcinol is produced in several steps from benzene, starting with dialkylation with propylene to give 1,3-diisopropylbenzene. Oxidation and Hock rearrangement of this disubstituted arene gives acetone and resorcinol.[5]

Although of little commercial value, many additional routes exist for resorcinol. It can be produced when any of a large number of resins (e.g., galbanum, asafoetida, etc.) are melted with potassium hydroxide, or by the distillation of Brazilwood extract. It may be prepared synthetically by melting 3-iodophenol, phenol-3-sulfonic acid, or benzene-1,3-disulfonic acid with potassium carbonate; by the action of nitrous acid on 3-aminophenol or on 1,3-diaminobenzene.[6] Many ortho- and para-compounds of the aromatic series (for example, the bromophenols, benzene-para-disulfonic acid) also yield resorcinol on fusion with potassium hydroxide.

Resorcinol crystallizes from benzene as colorless needles that are readily soluble in water, alcohol, and ether, but insoluble in chloroform and carbon disulfide.

It reduces Fehling's solution and ammoniacal silver solutions. It does not form a precipitate with lead acetate solution, as does the isomeric pyrocatechol. Iron(III) chloride colors its aqueous solution a dark-violet, and bromine water precipitates tribromoresorcinol. These properties are what give it its use as a colouring agent for certain chromatography experiments.

Sodium amalgam reduces it to dihydroresorcin, which when heated to 150 to 160 °C with concentrated barium hydroxide solution gives γ-acetylbutyric acid

When fused with potassium hydroxide, resorcinol yields phloroglucin, pyrocatechol, and diresorcin. It condenses with acids or acid chlorides, in the presence of dehydrating agents, to oxyketones, e.g., with zinc chloride and glacial acetic acid at 145 °C it yields resacetophenone (HO)₂C₆H₃~CO.CH₃.[7] With the anhydrides of dibasic acids, it yields fluoresceins. When heated with calcium chloride—ammonia to 200 °C it yields meta-dioxydiphenylamine.[8]

With sodium nitrite it forms a water-soluble blue dye, which is turned red by acids, and is used as an indicator, under the name of lacmoid.[9] It condenses readily with aldehydes, yielding with formaldehyde, on the addition of catalytic hydrochloric acid, methylene diresorcin [(HO)C₆H₃(O)]₂•CH₂. Reaction with chloral hydrate in the presence of potassium bisulfate yields the lactone of tetra-oxydiphenyl methane carboxylic acid.[10] In alcoholic solution it condenses with sodium acetoacetate to form 4-methylumbelliferone.[11]

In addition to electrophilic aromatic addition, resorcinol (and other poly-ols) undergo nucleophilic substitution via the enone tautomer.

Nitration with concentrated nitric acid in the presence of cold concentrated sulfuric acid yields trinitro-resorcin (styphnic acid), an explosive.

Resorcinol per se does not appear to occur naturally in the free state. It is found in argan oil.

Parts of a molecule of catechin, another natural compound that is present in tea, has the resorcinol skeleton structure in it.

Alkylresorcinols are a marker of whole grain diet.

Resorcinol is mainly used in the production of resins. As a mixture with phenol, it condenses with formaldehyde to afford adhesives.[5]

Resazurin, C₁₂H₇NO₄, obtained by the action of nitrous acid on resorcinol,[16] forms small dark red crystals possessing a greenish metallic glance. When dissolved in concentrated sulfuric acid and warmed to 210 °C, the solution on pouring into water yields a precipitate of resorufin, C₁₂H₇NO₃, an oxyphenoxazone, which is insoluble in water, but is readily soluble in hot concentrated hydrochloric acid, and in solutions of caustic alkalis. The alkaline solutions are of a rose-red color and show a cinnabar-red fluorescence. A tetrabromresorufin is used as a dye-stuff under the name of Fluorescent Resorcin Blue.

Thioresorcinol is obtained by the action of zinc and hydrochloric acid on the chloride of benzene meta-disulfonic acid. It melts at 27 °C and boils at 243 °C. Resorcinol disulfonic acid, (HO)₂C₆H₂(HSO₃)₂, is a deliquescent mass obtained by the action of sulfuric acid on resorcin.[17] It is readily soluble in water and ethanol.

Resorcinol is also a common scaffold that is found in a class of anticancer agents, some of which (luminespib, ganetespib, KW-2478, and onalespib) were in clinical trials as of 2014.[18][19] Part of the resorcinol structure binds to inhibits the N-terminal domain of heat shock protein 90, which is a drug target for anticancer treatments.[18]

Austrian chemist Heinrich Hlasiwetz (1825–1875) is remembered for his chemical analysis of resorcinol and for his part in the first preparation of resorcinol, along with Ludwig Barth, which was published in 1864.[20]^:10[21]

Benzene-1,3-diol is the name recommended by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) in its 1993 Recommendations for the Nomenclature of Organic Chemistry.[22]

Resorcinol is so named because of its derivation from ammoniated resin gum, and for its relation to the chemical orcin.[23]

• Resorcinol glue

• International Chemical Safety Card 1033
• NIOSH Pocket Guide to Chemical Hazards
• IARC Monograph: "Resorcinol"
• IUPAC Nomenclature of Organic Chemistry (online version of the "Blue Book")

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Resorcin". Encyclopædia Britannica. 23 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 183–184.