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!

Post Release Notes:
1. Obviously any organic chemist knows this reaction isn't a true 11step reaction, at least not in the sense that organic chemists think about reaction steps. This is in essence a 1step 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 1step 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 reprecipitation into dilute HCl. This would form larger particles of fluorescein that could be more easily filtered and dried.

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