Jackson - 31-1-2019 at 09:56
I found a paper about the synthesis of acetonitrile from ammoxidation of ethanol with acetaldhyde being an intermediate that is what actually reacts.
In the paper, MnO2 is listed as a catalyst. Also the reaction tempatures for the ammoxidation of ethanol are much higher than its boiling point. It
also says that the reaction could be performed at a lower tempature. My question is, could I essentially put ethanol, hydrogen peroxide, ammonia
solution, and potassium permanganate into a bomb and heat it for a while?
Link to the paper:
http://amsdottorato.unibo.it/5743/1/Federico_Folco_tesi.pdf
unionised - 31-1-2019 at 11:34
Apart from the likelihood of "bomb" being rather too accurate a term for what happens...
It's very unlikely that you would get significant acetonitrile formation in the presence of water.
clearly_not_atara - 31-1-2019 at 16:18
Why do people prefer complicated speculative syntheses rather than the published easy ones?
S.C. Wack - 31-1-2019 at 17:39
The preference appears to be to start threads and often accounts to try to make other people waste their time in response to some esoteric thing
pulled from a dark hole, often with added BS.
Jackson - 31-1-2019 at 18:43
Sorry, I just couldn’t find a procedure in the paper I linked.
It also said that it was performed with azetropic ethanol, ammonia gas and air as an oxygen source. The reason why I asked about switching out MnO2
for KMnO4 was because what o read from the paper was that acetaldye was the actual thing reacting in the ammoxidation reaction, and because ethanol
could be oxidized to acetaldehyde by KMnO4, with MnO2 being left, I thought that it may be a better option that could help the reaction go along.
Also, I Am now thinking that the reaction is supposed to happen in the gas phase as the reaction is heated. I think I would need a pretty good
condenser to reflux ethanol at 400c though.
[Edited on 2/1/2019 by Jackson]
Jackson - 31-1-2019 at 18:55
Doh! I am such an idiot. The reaction tempatures most likely refer to the tempature of the catalyst. I think what is supposed to happen is that
ethanol is boiled with ammonia and mixed with air where it is then sent over a catalyst bed.
Also after further reading the paper stated (on page 97) that the best catalyst for making acetonitrile from ethanol and ammonia is Cobalt oxide
supported by alumina.
[Edited on 2/1/2019 by Jackson]
ninhydric1 - 31-1-2019 at 20:50
Probably easier to go through the standard NH4CH3COO -> acetamide -> acetonitrile method.