Hi guys, is it possible to reduce phenylacetic acid to ethylbenzene? I know the double bonded oxygen can be removed with LiAlH, but I don't know how
to remove the OH. Thank you <3
[Edited on 19-3-2017 by RebeccaOlson]JJay - 19-3-2017 at 06:45
It's not trivial... you could reduce it to 2-phenylethyl alcohol with lithium aluminum hydride, dehydrate it with sulfuric acid to styrene, and reduce
the styrene by catalytic hydrogenation, but none of these steps are particularly high-yielding, and you might as well just start with styrene.RebeccaOlson - 19-3-2017 at 06:57
BABE! Thanks heaps Db33 - 19-3-2017 at 07:11
why on earth would u do this? ethyl benzene is very easy to obtain, whereas PAA is very hard. RebeccaOlson - 19-3-2017 at 07:15
Hahaha it's for theory, I didn't want to use benzoic acid and toluene because they might be affected by the ring. Would LiAlH, then chromyl chloride,
then more LiAlH work too?
EDIT: That won't work
[Edited on 19-3-2017 by RebeccaOlson]CuReUS - 19-3-2017 at 07:21
