Sciencemadness Discussion Board

nutrasweet to amphetamine?

xxxxx - 11-9-2008 at 14:30

would this reaction work ?

Nutrasweet to amphetamine.jpg - 354kB

kclo4 - 11-9-2008 at 14:37

Drug discussion isn't appreciated here.
Plus, their are a ton better ways to make an amphetamine and I kinda wonder why everyone (again.. similar thread: http://www.sciencemadness.org/talk/viewthread.php?tid=9512&a...) is so interested in making drugs from artificial sweeteners when you could just buy the phenylalanine to begin with and then do whatever it is you do.

Its not a good way regardless I don't think, I'd recommend looking at the Rhodium and Hive Archives.

ScienceSquirrel - 11-9-2008 at 14:57

Yee ha,
Another chemist that does not understand optical isomerism.
Phenylalanine extracted from Nutrasweet will yield the inactive isomer of amphetamine.
Loads of work and it does nothing!

Panache - 11-9-2008 at 18:26

Conversely if you need amphetamine so desperately you can buy it on prescription for the number of malaise it serves to alleviate, however your well informed GP may preferentially decide to prescribe a less addictive substance, however that should be of no concern as treatment is still administered.

And wtf is with scanned handwritten image, if you can scan you can type can't you, however for the benefit of the doubt i will attribute it to eccentricity rather than moronishness.

[Edited on 11-9-2008 by Panache]

chemrox - 11-9-2008 at 23:05

inactive isomer??!!

l-amphetamine = "benzedrine", d-amphetamine = "dexedrine"

while the former is more 'physical' in its effects and the latter more cerebral neither could be called inactive.





[Edited on 11-9-2008 by chemrox]

Sauron - 11-9-2008 at 23:13

I think he means the racemate (DL-Phe)

DL-methamphetamine is still active pharmacologically. In fact a lot of illicit meth is not anything but racemate. The cooks don't know or care about optical activity, optical resolution, etc. Too much trouble.

Nicodem - 11-9-2008 at 23:28

Quote:
Originally posted by xxxxx
would this reaction work ?

First of all, I need to moralize about your lazines in searching for information. The company NutraSweet is not involved in the sell of any enantiomer of phenylalanine ethyl ester. What it sells is aspartame, a methyl ester of a dipeptide which is used as sweetener. The dipeptide is made from L-aspartic acid and L-phenylalanine and thus under harsh hydrolysis would yield L-phenylalanine among other things, but this would be a pretty stupid way to obtain a comercially available and cheaper aminoacid.

As for the reaction the answer is no, you can not condense an N-unprotected aminoacid ester with dialkylmalonate to form an aminoketone like that.

PS: I'm moving this thread to Beginnings section since the original poster provided no references about the discussed reaction.

JohnWW - 12-9-2008 at 01:36

The above scanned hand-printing looks very much like that in the letters accompanying the Anthrax mailings in 2001!

Sauron - 12-9-2008 at 01:46

I'm glad the spores can't be spread in cyberspace...

ScienceSquirrel - 12-9-2008 at 02:57

Perhaps I should have said that d-amphetamine is the more 'interesting' and the abused compound.
You could use Nutrasweet as a source of phenylalanine but you would be making things very hard for yourself. Hours of work to isolate and purify something you can just buy.
And phenylalanine is not the best place to start if you want to make amphetamine.