[OrgoJosh]

Hello, I'm working on formulating a procedure for an undergraduate project.

I'm very interested in synthesizing biological staining dyes, but have found out that due to the highly conjugated nature of dyes that they can be rather complex and hard to make. What (in your opinion) would be the most simplistic dye to synthesize with standard undergraduate reagents and equipment? We have IR, nmr, gc and gc/ms for student use

[wildfyr]

Diazo dyes are quite easy to make, use simple and cheap starting materials, and are structurally simple.

Sudan class dyes seems like a good candidate

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudan_I synthesis is in the citations, I bet the other Sudan dyes (II, III etc have very similar synthesis).