Chemical Properties
White to pale brown solid in appearance; 2,4,5-Trichlorophenol also looks like small needles. It has a really strong odor that smells like phenol (a poisonous crystal-looking compound). This man-made substance is not found naturally in the environment.
Physical properties
Colorless crystals or yellow to gray flakes with a strong, disinfectant or phenolic odor. At 40 °C,
the average odor threshold concentration and the lowest concentration at which an odor were
detected were 350 and 63 μg/L, respectively. At 25 °C, the lowest concentration at which a taste
was detected was 100 μg/L (Young et al., 1996).
Uses
2,4,5-Trichlorophenol is used as a broad range pesticide against insects, fungi, vegetation and bacteria. It has become a common environmental contaminant and probable human carcinogen.
Preparation
2,4,5-Trichlorophenol is prepared indirectly, by the alkaline hydrolysis of 1,2,4,5-tetrachlorobenzene,because the direct chlorination of 2,5-dichlorophenol, difficult to achieve, proceeds with poor yield.
Definition
ChEBI: 2,4,5-trichlorophenol is a trichlorophenol carrying chloro groups at positions 2, 4 and 5.
General Description
Colorless needles, gray flakes or off-white lumpy solid. Phenolic odor. Formerly used as a fungicide and bactericide.
Air & Water Reactions
Insoluble in water.
Reactivity Profile
2,4,5-Trichlorophenol is a weak monobasic acid. Incompatible with acid chlorides, acid anhydrides and oxidizing agents. Produces dioxin in alkaline medium at high temperatures
Health Hazard
If your skin comes into contact with 2,4,5-trichlorophenol, it may burn the skin and produce redness and edema in humans. It also irritates the eyes, nose, pharynx, and lungs in humans.
Tests involving acute exposure of rats, mice, and guinea pigs have demonstrated 2,4,5-trichlorophenol to havemoderateacute toxicity by oral exposure.
Fire Hazard
Literature sources indicate that 2,4,5-Trichlorophenol is nonflammable.
Safety Profile
Suspected carcinogen
with experimental neoplastigenic data.
Poison by intraperitoneal and intravenous
routes. Moderately toxic by ingestion and
subcutaneous routes. Experimental
reproductive effects. Mutation data
reported. When heated to decomposition it
emits toxic fumes of Cland explodes. See
also CHLOROPHENOLS.
Environmental Fate
Biological. Chloroperoxidase, a fungal enzyme isolated from Caldariomyces fumago,
chlorinated 2,4,5-trichlorophenol to give 2,3,4,6-tetrachlorophenol (Wannstedt et al., 1990).
Photolytic. When 2,4,5-trichlorophenol (100 μM) in an oxygenated, titanium dioxide (2 g/L)
suspension was irradiated by sunlight (λ ≥340 nm), complete mineralization to carbon dioxide and
water and chloride ions was observed (Barbeni et al., 1987a).
The following phototransformation half-lives were reported for 2,4,5-trichlorophenol in
estuarine water exposed to sunlight and microbes: 1 h during winter; in distilled water: 0.6 and 1 h
during summer and winter, respectively; in poisoned estuarine water: 14 and 24 h during summer
and winter, respectively (Hwang et al., 1986).
A photooxidation rate constant of <3,000/M·sec was reported for the reaction of 2,4,5-
trichlorophenol and ozone in water at a pH range of 1.2 to 1.5 (Hoigné and Bader, 1983).
Chemical/Physical. 2,4,5-Trichlorophenol will not hydrolyze because it does not contain a
hydrolyzable functional group (Kollig, 1993).
During the manufacture/synthesis of 2,4,5-T using alkalies at high temperatures, some TCDD
may form (Worthing and Hance, 1991).
Purification Methods
Crystallise the phenol from EtOH or pet ether. [Beilstein 6 IV 962.]
