@lamerko , I have to agree with Rudi that the procedure, as outlined by the AI, is broadly unclear, and will not result in any meaningful yield of the sulfonate.
Glacial acetic acid is a pretty good polar, protic solvent and is used in substitutions reactions, most notably in aromatic nitrations, since it tolerates nitric acid and forms the active nitration species in that case. The solubility of HQ in GAA is not mentioned in the CRC databooks, but I was able to quickly find a reference(
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/ja01333a057), where it is stated that 60g dissolved in 250g of solvent on heating, so that may be a reason to use it. However, the solubility of HQ in water at room temperature is about 70g/L, so not orders of magnitude difference. HQ-sulfonic acid is very water soluble, in fact it hydrolyzes on standing as an aqueous solution, so it is only prepared to then be converted to a salt (sodium, potassium, calcium are the most common).
I think the silicon mind was thinking about nitration and not sulfonation. Nitrations are usually carried out at low temperatures and slowly to prevent side products and increase yield. Sulfonations are much harder to effect in practice. For example, to prepare benzenesulfonic acid, benzene must be treated at boiling point with oleum, which is sulfuric acid with added sulfur trioxide - basically the anhydride of H2SO4. HQ is a bit easier, the two hydroxyl groups activate the ring quite well, so regular concentrated acid will do the trick. In both cases, the reason for the high concentration of H2SO4 is to act as a dehydrating agent - the sulfonation is an equilibrium reaction and the resulting HQ-sulfonic acid can hydrolyze back to HQ and sulfuric acid in the presence of water, so an excess of H2SO4 is used to sequester the water (or the reaction is carried out under vacuum to remove water as it forms). This is well known and the earliest preparations of HQ sulfonates (Seyda, 1880s), outline the procedure in sufficient detail. Even the 10-20% water suggested would represent a stoichiometric excess to the amount of HQ that can be dissolved, even at reflux. At room temp or near the ice point, you will end up with an acidic slurry of HQ, water and acid, the activation energy is much higher. There are only two (reasonable, non-esoteric) methods to obtain HQMS at room temperature, either by reductive sulfonation of the quinone with tight pH control, or by anodic sulfonation at a platinum or carbon electrode, with a bit looser pH dependence.
The two above points make preparation of HQ-sulfonates difficult, because both the free acid and its salts are very water soluble. You can use the common ion effect to precipitate them out of solution (prepare a concentrated solution, then add sulfate salts and sulfuric acid), but the usual recrystallization yields are in the 10-20% range. Another unfortunate complication is that sulfates are almost always produced as a byproduct and have almost identical physical properties to the sulfonates, regarding solubility. Weissberger, et al, to prepare about 100g of HQMS-Na, use 7 liters (2 gal) of boiling hot methanol, to extract the salt from a reaction mix. Only the calcium salt (also known as calcium dobesilate) has reasonable solubility in simple alcohols, and can be separated out more easily (but converting it back to the more useful K or Na salt is a pain).
The sulfonation of HQ, without further purification is described in the attached patent. I have followed it successfully at molar scales. For b/w developers, the stoichiometric sulfate present can be accounted for and does not present a problem. For color work, the product has to be purified by extraction.
