Toluene Substitute

Name: Connie
Status: educator
Grade:
Location: NC

Question: What organic solvent can be substituted for toluene in a
chemistry lab dealing with polarity?
---------------------------------------
Xylene is non-polar and has medium-strong solvent strength,
very much like toluene.
Main differences: it boils a little higher and evaporates a little slower.

Jim Swenson
====================================================================
Connie,

In order to fully understand your needs, I would need details about the 
experiment that you are trying to conduct.  But I can also give a few 
substitutes off the top of my head just based on polarity.  If the issue 
is that you cannot get a hold of toluene, simply go to a hardware store 
by the paint section.  There will be cans of toluene, which may also be 
called tol or toluol.  A small can should not cost more than $5, or so.

The closes substitute solvents for toluene (solubility index of 2.4) are 
1. xylene (SI = 2.5); 2. Methyl-t-butyl ether (MTBE; SI = 2.5) and 3. 
diisopropylether (SI = 2.2).  Numbers 1 (0.02%) and 3 (0%) have the 
closest water miscibility as toluene (0.05%) and MTBE has a much higher 
miscibility with water (4.8%)

Matt Voss
====================================================================
Since toluene is not very polar, 0.37 Debye, it is not a good candidate for 
measuring polarity -- safety issues aside.  A substitute should meet these 
requirements: 1. polar, 2. non-toxic, 3. readily available and inexpensive 
(and there are probably others. A candidate would be isopropyl alcohol, 
dipole moment is 1.56 Debye, 1, 4 dichlorobenzene (I have some reservations 
about toxicity myself, but it is readily available in pharmacies. Being a 
symmetric planar molecule it has a dipole moment of zero. So does para-xylene, 
which is available in hardware stores.  Chemical handbooks have rather 
extensive lists of dipole moments that you can refer to for other liquid 
substances.

Vince Calder
====================================================================