Sciencemadness Discussion Board

Need ideas!

arkoma - 12-12-2016 at 16:16

OK, I am bored to death being "crippled" and house bound. I could sure use some ideas for what I can accomplish with what I have. Here is a list of chems I have:

Acetic Acid, 5%
Ammonia, household liquid
Benzyl Alcohol
Calcium Acetate
Calcium Hydroxide
Carbon Disulfide
Citric Acid
Copper Acetate
Copper Sulfate
Cyclohexanol
Diammonium Phosphate
Hydrochloric Acid
Iodine, Elemental
Isopropyl Alcohol, 91%
Lead Metal
Linseed Oil
Magnesium Sulfate
Manganese Dioxide, crude
Potassium Chloride
Potassium Dichromate
Potassium Hydroxide
Potassium Iodide
Potassium Nitrate
Potassium Permanganate
Red Phosphorous
Sodium Carbonate
Sodium Hydrogen Carbonate
Sodium Hydroxide
Sodium Metabisulphite
Styrene
Sulfuric Acid, drain cleaner
Trichloro-s-Triazinetrione
Urea
Xylene
Zinc Metal

I have a decent set of 24/40 glass including a suction funnel but the only vacuum source I have is a waterbed drainer.

myristicinaldehyde - 12-12-2016 at 16:37

Well, if you have a large amount of black (or preferably) white pepper, you could extract the piperine and work your way towards piperonal, which is neat. Chemplayer has a video series on this (in case you didn't know)

The only thing you are missing is the periodate, which (according to wikipedia) can be made from adding iodine to a hot, concentrated solution of a hydroxide or potassium chlorate with solid iodine using a nitric acid (nitrate + sulf. acid) to form iodate and then oxidizing with Cl2.

If you have bleach, you can make hydrazine, and some acetone or butanone, chloroform- this can be used for a formylation reaction among other things (http://chemistry-journal.org/dnload/Kannan-Shanmugan-and-Kam...), or make chlorbutanol (1,1,1-Trichloro-2-methylpropan-2-ol)- however this might need KOH for better yield.

I would recommend going through the Mellor treatises on the library- the phosphorus and nitrogen volume has some exotic things that might be doable for you, seeing that you have phosphorus! (I am jealous)

arkoma - 12-12-2016 at 16:55

Thanx for the input, but I have some BEAUTIFUL piperine xtals. Will check the Mellor. Have them already.

The Volatile Chemist - 12-12-2016 at 16:59

* Make ammonium carbonate/bicarbonate (smelling salts)...
* Calcium acetate to 'crack' into acetone in a still.
* Attempt Chemplayer's citrazinic acid synthesis (very little success from SM members)

Make a table of the cations and anions you have available and come up with ways to make metal salts you don't have (How might you make lead iodide? That would be an interesting and colorful target.)
* Make Potassium Chlorochromate?
* There's got to be a way to make benzoic acid from styrene...
* If you've got good equipment for it, try making Chromyl Chloride

You have cyclohexanol...lol arkoma, for the 'small amount' of reagents you list, you have some good taste/choices...
* Make cyclohexene/react this with chromyl chloride to get 2-chlorocyclohexanone.
* Oxidize the cyclohexanol to cyclohexanone.
* Cleave cyclohexene to make adipic acid

The fact that ethanol is not on that list is disconcerting...
Since I know you have it, make some esters :)

Maybe try some nitrations of organic stuff.
Research Nitrocitric acid, see if you can beat me to trying to make it :)

A lot of this depends on the glassware you have, but not all of it. Nitrations, some oxidative cleavings, and making most metal salts don't require ground glass (which I'm fairly sure you have anyways).

In posting this, I realize I haven't been on SM much in a while. Being honest, I wanted to wait till I had time to have good posts and experiments and not just give bad replies all the time. This winter break should afford some experiments...

EDIT: You have TCCA? More like TTC (Time To Chlorinate...)

[Edited on 12-13-2016 by The Volatile Chemist]

[Edited on 12-13-2016 by The Volatile Chemist]

j_sum1 - 12-12-2016 at 19:39

I'd pick a target compound and make a project out of it -- similar to Chemplayer's piperine series or his barbituric acid series. Malonic acid might be out of reach with the list of reagents you have. You might pick a dye compound or even something like phenolphthalein.

You might have some fun making an assortment of esters and bottling them.

Alternatively, go for some extractions. What is in your pantry that you can work with. Lots of fun is to be had with batteries but that is probably old news to you. You could do caffeine from coffee, theobromine from cocoa or chocolate, attempt to beat chemplayer's efforts at citric acid. http://www.compoundchem.com/infographics/ will give some other ideas.

And if it was me in your situation I would be doing a couple of projects simultaneously -- one organic and one inorganic. There is always a possibility of one project getting stuck for lack of a particular reagent that you cannot conjure up in a hurry. You don't want to have a total stall.

Metacelsus - 12-12-2016 at 20:19

Make disulfiram:

1) Make diethylamine from DEET (which you can buy).
2) React it with base (such as your NaOH) and your carbon disulfide to form the dithiocarbamate.
3) Oxidize the product to disulfiram (many different mild oxidants can work, such as your iodine).
4) ???
5) Profit!

[Edited on 12-13-2016 by Metacelsus]

SelfInflicted - 12-12-2016 at 21:12

I noticed you do not have any zinc salts, iron salts or nitic acid.

Try growing nice iron(II)sulfate crystals. You would need a source of iron eg steel wool or nails.

Zinc chloride may be useful for other experiments.

arkoma - 14-12-2016 at 15:45

you all are GREAT. I have some suggestions that I am going to put on the list.

I forgot to list Ammonium Sulfate and Ammonium Nitrate!

arkoma - 24-12-2016 at 09:04

Tried citrazinic acid--burnt the hell out of it *sigh*

aga - 24-12-2016 at 11:14

Came out brown huh ? Go again !

What process are you following ?

Cryolite. - 24-12-2016 at 16:10

Can you get acetone and formaldehyde? If so, there are suddenly a lot more options. You can react formaldehyde and ammonia to make hexamine, and use this in a Sommelet reaction with benzyl chloride to make benzaldehyde. You can also make dimethylamine from heating the resulting hexamine, and the produced amine can be reacted with formaldehyde and ketones to make interesting Mannich adducts. Benzaldehyde and acetone can react to form dibenzylideneacetone, an interesting UV absorbent compound. If you make chlorine with the TCCA and the hydrochloric acid and bubble this through lye solution, you can conduct a haloform with acetone to make chloroform (or you could just buy bleach). Finally, chloroform and acetone react under basic conditions to make chlorobutanol, a disinfectant with a nice camphor smell.

It's a shame you don't have sodium dichromate. If you did, you could use this to make copper ammonium chromate, which can then be pyrolyzed to copper chromite. This is a useful catalyst for making pyridine from niacin.

There are also the obligatory preparative experiments: you can try and make glacial acetic acid from the acetate sources and sulfuric acid, and you can try and make absolute isopropanol by drying the rubbing alcohol with sodium hydroxide and distilling. Acetate esters by Fischer esterification are also a nice idea-- I wonder what benzyl acetate smells like?

You could oxidize xylenes with permanganate to make phthalic acid isomers, and selectively sublime the ortho isomer out with heat. This can then be reacted with urea to make phthalimide. This in turn, can be reacted with hypochlorite to make anthranilic acid, and then esterified with methanol to methyl anthranilate, the essential odor of grape.

You can make hydrazine from hypochlorite and urea, which is interesting in its own right.

You could rig up a chlorate cell to make sodium chlorate and perchlorate-- the sodium perchlorate can be dissolved in hydrochloric acid to form dilute perchloric acid.

You can distill nitric acid and react this with lead to make lead nitrate. This can be reacted with potassium iodide for the classic golden rain experiment.

There is probably a way to make acetophenone from styrene. This is a nice smelling ketone solvent (smells like a fruitier benzaldehyde), which is an interesting contrast to the terrible smelling styrene.

Finally, you can make ammonia gas and use this to make saturated ammonia solution in water. With this, you can make Schweizers reagent, an aqueous solution which can dissolve cellulose.

Just some ideas which came to mind-- if you have some more organic precursors the number of possible reactions increases dramatically.

[Edited on 25-12-2016 by Cryolite.]

fastbre4k - 25-12-2016 at 04:21

Make HNO3 from Ammoniumnitrate and H2SO4
then make Urea nitrate and dehydrate with H2SO4
to yield nitrourea - blow this up - OR make semicarbazide! :) Great vid Chemplayer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tewn649Ht9o

maybe you have some suggestions for improvements

Since the yields from piperic acid to piperonal is quite low - just specifically oxidise to piperonylic acid - Piperine from Pepper - Piperine to Piperic acid - Piperic acid to piperonylic acid - not to Piperonal - then you esterficate it with EtOH or Isopropylalcohol.

You have IPA with 91% you can make it absolute. - More work :)

then make a Bouveault-Blanc-Reaction With Lithium (from batteries) in Isopropylalcohol :) To get 3,4-Methylendioxybenzylalcohol.

Cut the batteries with a pipe cutter open then use 2 Pincers to drag the outer cover then simply roll out the inner of the batterie

(I think Lithium can be used instead of Sodium - Isopropylalcohol instead of Ethanol becouse i have read that Secondary alcohols like butanol and IPA are better for that reaction becouse sodium ll react slower with the alcohol - by the way lithium already react slower with alcohols.)

you need a large excess of Li anyway - the atomic mass of lithium is lower than sodium so you need not so much Li by weight + it's readily available

Then go React the alcohol with HCl aq. - i tried with plane benzyl alcohol - works great!

to yield 3,4-Methylendioxybenzylchloride

Then go this: https://www.thevespiary.org/rhodium/Rhodium/Vespiary/talk/in...

to yield Piperonal.

With piperonal in hand make an awesome cake! :D





[Edited on 25-12-2016 by fastbre4k]

[Edited on 25-12-2016 by fastbre4k]

[Edited on 25-12-2016 by fastbre4k]

[Edited on 25-12-2016 by fastbre4k]

[Edited on 25-12-2016 by fastbre4k]

[Edited on 25-12-2016 by fastbre4k]

[Edited on 25-12-2016 by fastbre4k]

chemplayer... - 25-12-2016 at 05:59

1. Attempt to demonstrate that linseed oil oxidation can cause spontaneous combustion.
2. The 'benzaldehyde challenge' - what's the best yield you can get from benzyl alcohol using the reagents you have or can derive?
3. See if lead metal reduction works on potassium nitrate to make potassium nitrite.
4. Starting with what you have, create potassium periodate.

Deathunter88 - 25-12-2016 at 15:30

Quote: Originally posted by chemplayer...  
1. Attempt to demonstrate that linseed oil oxidation can cause spontaneous combustion.
2. The 'benzaldehyde challenge' - what's the best yield you can get from benzyl alcohol using the reagents you have or can derive?
3. See if lead metal reduction works on potassium nitrate to make potassium nitrite.
4. Starting with what you have, create potassium periodate.


Speaking of spontaneous combustion of linseed oil I have gone ahead and done the experiment and found that it does indeed happen pretty easily. I have a short write-up of the experiment on my blog: http://davyblog.blogspot.com/2016/08/spontaneous-combustion-of-linseed-oil.html

arkoma - 25-12-2016 at 17:47

As always I copy this page. Thank You All