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Sulaiman
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Anything interesting to do with Lactic Acid?
I bought a 90% lactic acid solution by mistake.
Is there any interesting chemistry?
CAUTION : Hobby Chemist, not Professional or even Amateur
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karlos³
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You can make N-alkylalanines from it, by tosylation/halogenation followed by substitution with some primary amine, like methylamine.
N-methylalanine can for example react with (substituted) benzaldehydes to produce ephedrines in a single step, often in low yields, but it works.
Tried that with piperonal three times 
The halogenated lactic acid, 2-halopropionic acid, could also be esterified and then reacts with benzaldehydes under sodium alkoxide catalysis to form
phenylpropanones, via darzens.
You could oxidise it to pyruvic acid also.
But I actually don't remember anything else it would be useful for right now
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Keras
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Maybe you can use it at some point for enantiomeric resolution? Provided you have pure R or L-lactic acid, and not the racemic mixture.
Otherwise, make bio-plastic by auto-esterification.
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unionised
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Kettle descaling.
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Lion850
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Does it make colourful salts with copper / nickel / cobalt / chromium / iron ?
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draculic acid69
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I2/red phosphorus reduction to propionic acid
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BauArf56
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ethyl lactate, as a sweet smelling solvent.
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draculic acid69
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Yes, at least with the copper. I googled copper lactate and seen some pictures of green/ blue solids and a link to woelens site.
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Sulaiman
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Thanks for the suggestions
None of the above excite me at the moment so I'll just store it until required
CAUTION : Hobby Chemist, not Professional or even Amateur
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ShotBored
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I've been getting into mushroom hunting lately and there is a super interesting variety where I'm at called a "Candy Cap" which has a very interesting
aromatic molecule quabalactone III, which hydrolyzes into "sotolon" (3-Hydroxy-4,5-dimethylfuran-2(5H)-one) upon drying. This is what gives the candy
cap a sweet aroma. Sotolon is also responsible for the aroma of maple syrup. It is also found commonly as an aromatic in wine. I would think that
messing around with any of the aromatic lactone derivatives could be quite fun and have some interesting aromatic uses! I can't find a synthesis
pathway for lactose to sotolon...my organic chemistry has been quite lacking the past few years anyways
Also if you dehydrate lactic acid into lactide, you can then polymerize it to form polylactide which is similar to polystyrene but is apparently
biodegradable. But personally I think the aromatic lactones are more interesting
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DraconicAcid
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I've made some quite nice crystals of copper lactate, *however*, it seems to form different hydrates and complexes under different conditions.
Please remember: "Filtrate" is not a verb.
Write up your lab reports the way your instructor wants them, not the way your ex-instructor wants them.
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MarkoMiletic
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Try dissolving some teeth in it. If you don't have spare personal teeth, than of someone else or animals.
Because naturopaths claim that lactic acid produced by bacteria is not destroying teeth, and they tried keeping them in acid for months and not
affected. While modern science claims opposite, that we have to brush teeth.
I have not brushed teeth or visited dentist already for 15 years, and rate of tooth decay is same as of those around me who visit dentist at least
yearly. I now only have 6 decayed teeth, 2 completely eaten away to the root, and 4 only partially, mostly those at the end of jaw, last ones, as
predicted by naturopaths. I only feel toothache when exposed to high levels of stress, anxiety, summer heat...
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DraconicAcid
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Try dissolving a naturopath in it.
Please remember: "Filtrate" is not a verb.
Write up your lab reports the way your instructor wants them, not the way your ex-instructor wants them.
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MarkoMiletic
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Maybe I will, but after you convince me that tooth can be dissolved.
Don't believe in scientific studies which I only see as letters on paper.
Video of experiment would sound more convincing, but still not 100% as many videos and movies are simply fake.
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Twospoons
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Did it ever occur to you that you are simply lucky enough to have strong teeth? And that if you had brushed them regularly you'd have no decay
whatsoever?
Helicopter: "helico" -> spiral, "pter" -> with wings
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karlos³
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Quote: Originally posted by ShotBored  | I've been getting into mushroom hunting lately and there is a super interesting variety where I'm at called a "Candy Cap" which has a very interesting
aromatic molecule quabalactone III, which hydrolyzes into "sotolon" (3-Hydroxy-4,5-dimethylfuran-2(5H)-one) upon drying. This is what gives the candy
cap a sweet aroma. Sotolon is also responsible for the aroma of maple syrup. It is also found commonly as an aromatic in wine. I would think that
messing around with any of the aromatic lactone derivatives could be quite fun and have some interesting aromatic uses! I can't find a synthesis
pathway for lactose to sotolon...my organic chemistry has been quite lacking the past few years anyways
Also if you dehydrate lactic acid into lactide, you can then polymerize it to form polylactide which is similar to polystyrene but is apparently
biodegradable. But personally I think the aromatic lactones are more interesting |
You know thats strange that the quabalactone III hydrolyses under drying to sotolone, well, somewhat 
Not so much anymore, if you consider the 91% of water in a mushroom, which are set free then.
Could I ask you where you're located, just in general, and what kind of woods you find them in?
I love mushroom hunting too, and this year was so wet, I think it will be a very mushy autumn
I wish I would have been there near that chemical plant where they accidentally released 4l of sotolone 
(summer 2013 in Neuss)
The best with sotolone is, that higher quantities will smell like Maggiwürze and not overly disgustingly sweet or such!
Sorry for the OT!
E: no, its not OT!
If you oxidise the lactic acid to pyruvic acid, you can react that with glycine, and the resulting cyclic amine would undergo a sandmeyer to give
sotolone, I guess.
See the attached document.
[Edited on 11-8-2021 by karlos³]
Attachment: guerra2011.pdf (908kB)
This file has been downloaded 302 times
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HydrogenSulphate
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You could make some colorful transition metal lactate salts......
vanadium, chromium, manganese, iron, nickel, cobalt.
See how the colors of the lactate salts compare to transition metal salts derived from other carboxylic acids like formic (formate), acetic (acetate),
propanoic (propanoate), ascorbic (ascorbate), sorbic (sorbate), tartaric (tartrate), citric (citrate), oxalic (oxalate), and so on.
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DraconicAcid
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| Quote: Originally posted by HydrogenSulphate | You could make some colorful transition metal lactate salts......
vanadium, chromium, manganese, iron, nickel, cobalt.
See how the colors of the lactate salts compare to transition metal salts derived from other carboxylic acids like formic (formate), acetic (acetate),
propanoic (propanoate), ascorbic (ascorbate), sorbic (sorbate), tartaric (tartrate), citric (citrate), oxalic (oxalate), and so on.
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The trouble with that is the lactate ion may or may not chelate to the transition metal, depending on the temperature, pH (the hydroxyl can be
deprotonated at high pH when coordinated to a metal ion) and which ion is in excess, meaning you almost never know exactly what you're going to get.
[Edited on 11-8-2021 by DraconicAcid]
Please remember: "Filtrate" is not a verb.
Write up your lab reports the way your instructor wants them, not the way your ex-instructor wants them.
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draculic acid69
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| Quote: Originally posted by MarkoMiletic | Try dissolving some teeth in it. If you don't have spare personal teeth, than of someone else or animals.
Because naturopaths claim that lactic acid produced by bacteria is not destroying teeth, and they tried keeping them in acid for months and not
affected. While modern science claims opposite, that we have to brush teeth.
I have not brushed teeth or visited dentist already for 15 years, and rate of tooth decay is same as of those around me who visit dentist at least
yearly. I now only have 6 decayed teeth, 2 completely eaten away to the root, and 4 only partially, mostly those at the end of jaw, last ones, as
predicted by naturopaths. I only feel toothache when exposed to high levels of stress, anxiety, summer heat... |
Everything U said above about your mouth is a reason to brush your teeth.
Also I question what kind of ppl your around if they see dentists regularly
& brush there teeth and still end up with a rate of decay
equal to you.
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unionised
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A while ago I was wondering how to stick perlite together to make a refractory.
I figured that sodium silicate was an option and I found that you can buy a solution in the DIY store as concrete water-proofer/ dust-proofer.
And I also figured that it would be possible to add an acid and precipitate silica gel- which would do a fine job of gluing the perlite.
But, of course, the gel production is very fast (unless the solution is so dilute as to be useless as glue).
So I added ethyl acetate to the silicate solution.
That worked quite well- the ester hydrolysed to give acetic acid and that reacted so I go sodium acetate and silica gel.
But I couldn't get it to work as well as I would have liked because the ethyl acetate wasn't sufficiently soluble in the silicate solution.
But ethyl lactate is much more soluble in water
So, you could use lactic acid to make ethyl lactate and then see if you can make a homogeneous mixture with sodium silicate solution which should set
to a gel.
That would be useful if you wanted to cast silica - though it would shrink a lot when you dry it and, if you don't wash the salts out of it, it would
fall apart when it got hot
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draculic acid69
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Interesting.
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unionised
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Naturopaths are notoriously hard to digest.
Or, at least, hard to stomach.
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theAngryLittleBunny
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| Quote: Originally posted by karlos³ | You can make N-alkylalanines from it, by tosylation/halogenation followed by substitution with some primary amine, like methylamine.
N-methylalanine can for example react with (substituted) benzaldehydes to produce ephedrines in a single step, often in low yields, but it works.
Tried that with piperonal three times
The halogenated lactic acid, 2-halopropionic acid, could also be esterified and then reacts with benzaldehydes under sodium alkoxide catalysis to form
phenylpropanones, via darzens.
You could oxidise it to pyruvic acid also.
But I actually don't remember anything else it would be useful for right now |
I don't really think halogenating the hydroxy of lactic acid is realistically possible, since it is right next to a carboxyl group it behaves quite
differently then a regular alcohol group. Also the lactic acid has 10% water, so anything that requires anhydrous conditions is out.
And I actually tried the oxidation to pyruvic acid with KMnO4, but it didn't seen to work and it started giving of bubbles which I assume was CO2.
Maybe I would have had to cool it or dilute it more, or KMnO4 was just too strong, but yeah, lactic acid seems pretty useless lol.
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Keras
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I just realised that lactic acid is what is now sold over here (in Europe) in hardware shops under the moniker ‘substitute of hydrochloric acid’.
So it's just available everywhere at about zero price point.
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Tsjerk
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You can also find it in webshop selling stuff for home brewing and making cosmetics.
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