Well, I embarked on, albeit a failed, search for over the counter xylene, whilst also searching down some needed resources. Also, spent some 70 pounds on canisters for my gas mask.
Did find one paint thinner which contained some xylene, but only as a mixture of shite, that I'd have had to separately vacuum distill in 7-8 fraction cuts. But sod that. I'm just going to go online and buy some pure xylene. I had some toluene but not sure if I can use it for my needs, its on of the few reasons that one actually might want one rather than the other, for almost anything, toluene or xylene can be used interchangeably, but in this case I want xylene because of its higher boiling point, so I can heat something in refluxing xylene, which has a higher boiling point than toluene or benzene.
Specifically, for thermolytic degradation of triphenylphosphonium bromide. Didn't find the xylene, but whilst walking into a woodwork shop looking for cellulose thinners which might have been xylene
but, sadly, it seems these days the fucking things are actually advertising 'xylene free' as a selling point, as if its desirable.
Not to me it isn't. But in the woodwork shop selling the crap thinners which were acetone, ethyl acetate and methanol instead of the wanted xylenes (it has three isomers, ortho-xylene, meta- and para-xylene each with somewhat different boiling points.) I found some other product which is composed of a mixture of N-methylpyrollidone, and triethylamine! THAT is neat. OTC triethylamine. It'll need some purification, but it certainly is a find. Got a tub of about a liter of the stuff. If thats all thats in it, with no crap, that can just be separated by distilling out the triethylamine or forming a bisulfite adduct of the NMP then stripping the NMP.
