Sciencemadness Discussion Board

Synthesis of 2-chlorobenzalmalononitrile (CS Tear Gas)

Thyzoid - 25-12-2023 at 12:49

Hopefully this is the right place to post it. If it isn't feel free to delete this post.

I made a video on the synthesis of 2-chlorobenzalmalononitrile (CS). It is an extremely potent tear gas and as the powder is legal to make in my area I made some. If you are interested in seeing the prep feel free to watch it here:

https://youtu.be/JKkStXg0RK4

Fery - 26-12-2023 at 00:56

This is great experiment !!! You even tested the product on yourself !!! Did you drive the car from the night forest back to your home by yourself? Bad visibility because of night combined with worse sight because of testing the tear gas on your own eyes?
In the pyrrolidine synthesis part of the video I did not see some steps - decomposing enamine using HCl and then liberating free base using NaOH:
https://www.sciencemadness.org/whisper/viewthread.php?tid=64...
Also the yield of pyrrolidine is much lower when using equimolar amounts of proline and acetophenone: https://www.sciencemadness.org/whisper/viewthread.php?tid=64...
Better yield when using about 3-fold amount of acetophenone (the first link, yield 85%) when compared with equimolar amounts (the second link, yield 52%).
But that's all fine as you needed only a small catalytical amount of the pyrrolidine.
Anyway great experiment, thx for sharing it and making perfect and inspiring video !!!

charley1957 - 26-12-2023 at 05:28

I worked in the prison system in Texas for a few years. During initial training we were gassed just to show us what it was like. Pretty intense stuff. Then later on we had incidents in the prison that required the use of CS for control. That substance will settle and collect with the dust inside of mechanical equipment, which I found out later when I went to clean the condenser coils of an ice machine. When I stirred up the dust I gassed myself again, with my whole crew. Nasty stuff!

charley1957 - 26-12-2023 at 05:29

I worked in the prison system in Texas for a few years. During initial training we were gassed just to show us what it was like. Pretty intense stuff. Then later on we had incidents in the prison that required the use of CS for control. That substance will settle and collect with the dust inside of mechanical equipment, which I found out later when I went to clean the condenser coils of an ice machine. When I stirred up the dust I gassed myself again, with my whole crew. Nasty stuff!

Thyzoid - 28-12-2023 at 22:22

Quote: Originally posted by Fery  
This is great experiment !!! You even tested the product on yourself !!! Did you drive the car from the night forest back to your home by yourself? Bad visibility because of night combined with worse sight because of testing the tear gas on your own eyes?
In the pyrrolidine synthesis part of the video I did not see some steps - decomposing enamine using HCl and then liberating free base using NaOH:
https://www.sciencemadness.org/whisper/viewthread.php?tid=64...
Also the yield of pyrrolidine is much lower when using equimolar amounts of proline and acetophenone: https://www.sciencemadness.org/whisper/viewthread.php?tid=64...
Better yield when using about 3-fold amount of acetophenone (the first link, yield 85%) when compared with equimolar amounts (the second link, yield 52%).
But that's all fine as you needed only a small catalytical amount of the pyrrolidine.
Anyway great experiment, thx for sharing it and making perfect and inspiring video !!!


As you could imagine I did not film the last part on my own. The pain goes away rather quickly so after about 20 minutes I still ended up driving the car. You know what the worst part of the video was? After getting gassed I saw that I forgot to bring tissues while my nose was running like crazy lol.