Synthesis Of Camphor Essay

Introduction

Camphor is the natural product of Camphora officinarum which mainly distributes in Asia especially in Japan and China.1Actually, since the dawn of civilization, this molecule has been known for its strong smell and the use of camphor has an extensive and long-valued history.2, 3 In ancient time, it was used for medical use in China and in Japan it was also applied in framework to make it lighter and in inks because of solubility in pigments.2-4 In Europe, it was applied to preserve wood and deterrent insect. Additionally, during outbreaks of some diseases in Europe such as Black Death and smallpox, camphor was used as a fumigant.3 Camphor was also used in ritual in India due to its nonirritant property.3

It is considered to be a molecule that changed the world because it is so multifunctional that strongly influences human’s life.2 Moreover, with the development of scientific research, the demand for camphor keeps increasing because camphor’s application is extended in many new fields including medicine

Bredt was the first one that successfully elucidated the molecule structure of camphor in 1893 after tremendous work had been done.6 Then Prof. Albin Haller, who used to be the president of French Chemical Society, successfully synthesized camphor from camphoric acid (Figure 2).2,10 However, since it was still difficult to find camphoric acid to produce camphor, in 1903, G. Komppa published his work that provided one way to synthesize camphoric acid (Figure 3).2,11,12 His work was actually controversial that Thorpe and Blanc criticized his work for different opinion on identity of a significant intermediate when synthesizing camphoric acid.11,12 This argument was finally end by Komppa himself by explaining errors made by his critics.11 Since then, the synthesis of camphor has been widely accepted and was also improved by other scientist later by simplifying synthesis steps (Figure