Making Fluorescein

In this video I demonstrate the organic synthesis of fluorescein. This chemical is an extremely fluorescent compound in dilute solution (as the name would imply), and I primarily synthesized it as an intermediate in the synthesis of eosin. I meant to release a video on my synthesis of resorcinol before this one, as it is used as a primary reagent, but that video ended up taking over 4 hours of footage and the editing is intimidating. Enjoy! Join this channel to get access to perks and support my work: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCw8axYTp2BtinEmM_rdzUjQ/join Post Release Notes: 1. Obviously any organic chemist knows this reaction isn't a true 11-step reaction, at least not in the sense that organic chemists think about reaction steps. This is in essence a 1-step reaction with 11 discrete mechanistic steps, each of which I referred to as a unique "step". In the old days of this channel I'd have just called this a 1-step reaction, while lately in response to feedback in the comments I've begun going through every single electron transfer as a unique step which is a bit much. I think in the future I'd present this as "A single step reaction with 11 discrete mechanisms, and here they are.." 2. To dry the final product I believe in retrospect that the easiest way would have been the conversion to the soluble sodium salt followed by re-precipitation into dilute HCl. This would form larger particles of fluorescein that could be more easily filtered and dried.