Chloroform, which is mildly acidic, would be a good solvent. The electron-poor hydrogen would "stick" to the tertiary amines and bring the molecule
into solution. Chloroform is also easily evaporated, making purification that much easier.
There is a very detailed thread on the preparation of chloroform from acetone and bleach on these very forums. It is within the reach of the
amateur.[/
I am new here. Hello. I am an amateur chemist and model rocket hobbyist. I don't work, on social security disability and cared for by other family
members who can handle dealing with humans, because I have trouble with doing that.
All of my chemicals have been collected from "otc" sources that never come in the mail bc I don't have credit card or cards and refuse to ask family
to buy things bc I don't like trying to explain what the hypothetical item would be used for to make.
I will do my best to make clear what I mean, I have Aspergers, so I apologize for any unclear text. Ask me for clarification where needed.
I was educated by the public school system, so I really apologize for my ignorance as to proper stoichiometry, and proper chemistry with respect to
the those of you who I learn much from on here.
I have a peace playing with the Legos of the universe (I heard this name for atoms and like it), so my interest in chemistry is my hobby is my life.
I have no children and thankfully no spouse. I tried that once and had my heart broken, until I reverted back to what I always loved and what always
was faithful to me too.
That which maybe leads you to read this, unless you are one of the workers on this forum/site in which case computers maybe for you. Ok, sorry for
disclaimer and excuses.
Just know that I am not dangerous or stupid or disrespectful. Anyways..
There are a few examples of this prep on YouTube. The haloform reaction, creating acetic acid and chloroform from reacting acetone and bleach or
even propionic acid and chloroform from MEK and bleach.
I'm curious of all the acids that can be made from their respective ketones when utilized in this manner. I was a little successful following some of
these videos when I used acetone, which was my first attempt.
I was far, far more successful and had a near quantitative yield following a video (I'm very sorry, i don't remember who posted the video that gave
me my success, nor do I know exactly how to provide a link to the video.
I will do my best to describe the video though). In this video a man is on a screened-in porch with, I think, a swimming pool.
He used a bucket with ice, explaining that the ice was needed bc the reaction gets warm, perhaps hot with higher hypochlorite concentrations, or
larger reactions in general.
This ice was the key to my success. I want to say he explained the molar ratio of adding the ketone to hypochlorite bleach, coming up with something
like 49cc acetone to one and half gallon bleach, bleach being 6.75 (the standard number, again apologies for if my percentage number wrong.
I'm positive it was 6.25 or 6.75). I had run out of acetone but had a can of MEK, thinking I might try to make some of this propionic acid, as it had
a use in the reaction to create pyrimethamine, as nurdrage had said.
I was interested in attempting this at first, but chose against it due to lack of materials and experience thus far. Propionic acid has many uses in
organic chemistry. So here's what I did:
I went to rite aid pharmacy and purchased three half gallon bottles of bleach, an oral syringe (10 cc) with volumetric measurements in both metric
and imperial (is imperial the right name for the kind America uses?), and a small bottle of 100% acetone nail polish remover.
I decided to make chlorbutanol and this requires chloroform and acetone with alkali hydroxide catalyst, spending less than ten dollars total.
I filled a gallon ziploc bag with ice cubes three times, went out to garage and put these into a five gallon bucket (each time)along with all of the
bleach, 1.5 gallons.
Sorry, don't recall metric equivalent to this. I will google...5.67811768 liters. Ok so then I added drop wise, 52ml of methyl ethyl ketone, stirring
occasionally.
There were many ice cubes, easily more ice than fluid, at first. I had very crude equipment, choosing to use a wooden broomstick as a stirring rod,
which, oddly, did not negatively effect my yield.
I stirred, slowly, maybe one rpm per second. After about fifteen minutes the reaction began and the solution which was clear-yellow like champagne but
with lots of ice cubes became cloudy and much easier to stir as ice cubes melted and became smaller.
I continued to stir with the upside down broom for 45 minutes, satisfied that the need for more stirring was not necessary anymore. I went in, got
more ice, came back out and added these, stirring a little more.
I brought the bucket out of the garage and put on the side of the house, with a lid on top, loosely placed. This was done on a late Spring afternoon
in 2017, maybe it was May.
I left this bucket for the night. The next morning I went around to the side of the house and was excited to see that I had succeeded.
I think that the extra 3 ccs of MEK was good measurement bc my yield was nearly exactly the same number, maybe just less than this. What I like about
chloroform is that it is more dense than water and thus sinks in water!
This is very convenient bc chcl3 is very volatile, evaporating easily as fast as the original ketone, if not even faster.
This is also very convenient if you want to use this for a solvent. Storing is easy even if it gets warm bc you can put it in a water bottle under
water, so it won't pop the bottle.
My next adventure will be to make potassium permanganate. I have the innards of an alkaline d cell battery. I will attempt by using bleach, or maybe
kno3. Thank you for your time. Thank you for your wisdom. |
