Sciencemadness Discussion Board

making intresting substances from already available compounds

bold_ing - 11-6-2019 at 13:35

So..i feel like it's time for me to explore organic chemistry a bit more, and i want to synthesize intresting new compounds (it has to be cool ofcourse or els why even bother lol)
i can buy many insecticides/fungicides such as azoxystrobine and cypermethrin and the list goes on i don't remember a lot of the other compounds and i was wondering if they're of any use as precursors to other intresting stuff ?
Anyways whatever information yall have i'd love to hear it.

Assured Fish - 11-6-2019 at 16:32

This question is always troublesome when it comes up, people often expect us to name them some really awesome compound with interesting properties that is not too challenging to make.
Sadly most of the really exciting compounds are all hellishly hard to make.

If what you want is just to dip your toes and learn some stuff about organics then i would advise first making some phenylthalein as thats very useful in a lab and the difficulty of making it can be talored somewhat, in that you could just buy phthalamide and phenol or you could deacetylate and decarboxylate aspirin to make phenol and oxydize ortho-zylene and heat it up to 180°c with some urea that you have isolated from your own urine to prepare phthalamide.

There is also alot of very beutiful smelling fragrant esters and aldehydes that arn't too challenging to prepare.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aroma_compound

If you complete all this and wish to go into true multistep organic synthesis then i would perhaps advise replicating nudrages total synthesis of pyramethamine.

I have some others in my head like some vanilloid compunds and a few others but they are all too complicated or dangerous or illegal.
Ill mention a couple that peak my own interest, you atleast want to learn about them theoretically.

Sodium thiopental
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium_thiopental

Capsazepine
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capsazepine

Cubane
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cubane

Saxitoxin
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saxitoxin

bold_ing - 11-6-2019 at 17:09

hey thanks ! the esters and aldehydes are definitely intresting ,I'll take look into a few of them.

I have already made phenolphthalein using gloves following nilered's procedure but
pyramethamine is still a bit of a strech for me as with the saxitoxin and sodium thiopental but i'm gonna get there

since I had easy acess to those organic compounds I mentioned earlier i thought they'd be a better closer route to something...

j_sum1 - 11-6-2019 at 17:14

I would recommend binge-watching chemplayer on bitchute. If you don't come away from that inspired and having a whole lot of ideas then... well maybe OC is not the right direction.

At an entry level (which is where I am at), esters, aldehydes, phenol from aspirin, isolating compounds (eg by fractionating gasoline or solvent mixes) styrene from polystyrene, grignards, extractions from -- well whatever you have available: thymol, camphor, capsasin, caffeine, theobromine, piperine, and go from there.
UC235 has some good ideas on his channel too.

bold_ing - 11-6-2019 at 17:51

UC235 is great, idk how I missed it all along

Pumukli - 11-6-2019 at 20:04

Pesticides can be useful precursors in org. chem. if you know what to look for.

Modern ones are sadly mostly useless. They are too big and complicated molecules (like your examples). The older ones were usually smaller and more useful because their hydrolysis (other "lysis") products were more interesting.
Then comes the legislation problem: here in the EU they culled most of the "good, old ones" in an ongoing process since 2009 or so for various reasons. If you live elsewhere then your chances may be better to find the right ones. In a developing 3rd world country - it could be a gold mine! :)

I planned to do an "exploiting pesticides" (mini)series on them but while I was planning they removed the best candidates from the store shelves! Even if I had stockpiled some the series would be obsolete because no one could repeat the synths. :(

clearly_not_atara - 11-6-2019 at 20:43

I think the hardest part of answering this question is determining what is cool. Usually I look at molecules and I think "does this turn into anything cool?" and the answer is usually "no" but I'm not really looking at deep modifications because I'm trying to consider every path instead of just one of them.

Like, pyrimethamine is cool?

You might be able to make a BIG base:

http://www.chtf.stuba.sk/~szolcsanyi/education/files/Chemia%...

You can make butanedione from MEK, isopropylamine from acetone, potassium fluoride by the rxn of K2CO3 and BaF2 (do not use glass!), acetonitrile from ethyl acetate, trimethyl orthoformate from acetone via chloroform...

Assured Fish - 11-6-2019 at 22:39

Honorable mention.
http://www.sciencemadness.org/talk/viewthread.php?tid=62106

bold_ing - 12-6-2019 at 03:56

Quote: Originally posted by Pumukli  
Pesticides can be useful precursors in org. chem. if you know what to look for.

Modern ones are sadly mostly useless. They are too big and complicated molecules (like your examples). The older ones were usually smaller and more useful because their hydrolysis (other "lysis") products were more interesting.
Then comes the legislation problem: here in the EU they culled most of the "good, old ones" in an ongoing process since 2009 or so for various reasons. If you live elsewhere then your chances may be better to find the right ones. In a developing 3rd world country - it could be a gold mine! :)

I planned to do an "exploiting pesticides" (mini)series on them but while I was planning they removed the best candidates from the store shelves! Even if I had stockpiled some the series would be obsolete because no one could repeat the synths. :(


Well well well...guess what
It is a gold mine over here ! I'll take another trip to the store and write down everything that's available , I'm sure there's atleast one or two very useful chemicals

bold_ing - 12-6-2019 at 04:06

I can get my hands on a lot of chemicals including fluorides so I don't want to risk exposure to fluorine or HF

I can also get some otherwise kinda hard to get intermediates if I wanted to build a more or less complicated molecule

And that's true cool can be many things. but anything that Q from Mi6 would freak out about meats the definition