Ephoton - 14-6-2008 at 09:57
quite some time ago antoncho came up with the idea of useing AlI3 and methanol to synthesis methyl iodide.
he did this but disolving iodine in methanol then adding aluminium foil
to the solution.
he got reasonable yeilds too (I think it was inbetween 60 to 70 percent).
my idea and question is do you think if one was to dissolve chlorine
in methanol in the same fashion then add Al foil would one get
methyl chloride as well or would this reaction not happen.
the reason I ask is when you make methyl lithium from either bromide
or iodides you always get a halide complex. but with chlorides as
I have read you get a pure methyl lithium ether solution as the
chloride does not complex.
also of course chlorides are a lot cheaper and easier to obtain.
maby using chilled ether as a solvent for both the methanol and
chlorine then filtering out the aluminium hydroxide would give you
a solution that just needs lithium added to it to make methyl lithium
solution in a simple way.
also being able to weigh the salt that is percipitated should also
give you a good idea of your concentration.
that is of course if this is possible.
Ephoton - 14-6-2008 at 20:58
well of note is this
CHEMICAL DANGERS:
The substance decomposes on burning producing toxic and corrosive fumes including hydrogen chloride and phosgene. Reacts violently with powdered
aluminium, powdered zinc, aluminium trichloride and ethylene causing fire and explosion hazard. Attacks many metals in the presence of moisture.
found at
http://www.inchem.org/documents/icsc/icsc/eics0419.htm
this would at least say that a reaction happens with the methyl chloride
it self if not the methanol in the first place.
at a guess I would say that the violent reaction would be the formation
of DCM and chloroform and maby even up to tetrachloro methane.
nice that I see only aluminium hydride being a side product.
maby if reacted with lithium chloride one might have a new way to LAH.
[Edited on 15-6-2008 by Ephoton]
Nicodem - 16-6-2008 at 01:19
Please compose your question in a way that others can understand what the discussed issue is. Are you asking on how to prepare methyl chloride to be
used for preparing methyl lithium? In such a case it would be quite irrational to use a gas for such a reaction where a MeLi solution in Et2O or
alkanes is the end product. Obviously it is much more reasonable to use MeI (a liquid at room temperature) which can be measured by volume or weight
and can be purified more easily than a gas. Even if you find an easy method to prepare MeCl from MeOH you would have quite a hard time purifying the
gas.
PS1: I could not understand the rest of the text so I can't comment on that (perhaps some native English speaker will have more luck than me in
deciphering the content).
PS2: I'm moving this to Beginnings due to lack of references.