Sciencemadness Discussion Board

Acrylic acid/methyl acrylate via sandmeyer

Opylation - 4-3-2020 at 22:20

So I have been trying to think of a few ways to produce acrylic acid or methyl acrylate and the first way I thought of was to perform a mixed aldol condensation between acetone and paraformaldehyde. After trying to fractionally distill the methyl vinyl ketone I ended up with polymerized crap in my rbf and very minor amount of product, mostly acetone with maybe some MVK. My next step would be a haloform reaction but at this point I feel like it would be best to abandon that endeavor.

However, an easier route I have been looking into would be a sandmeyer reaction between b-alanine or b-alanine methyl ester. This would produce 3-hydroxypropionic acid or the methyl ester which upon distillation would form the desired product. Is this a feasible way of producing acrylic acid or it’s esters?

[Edited on 5-3-2020 by Opylation]

draculic acid69 - 4-3-2020 at 22:30

Just buy them

Dr.Bob - 5-3-2020 at 08:21

Acrylates are quite reactive and can polymerize or react further easily in many cases, so in many case they are hard to purify or store, but often are simply used in-situ or at least distilled directly into some sort of stabilizer or anti-oxidant. They (methyl acrylate in particular) are also horrible to smell and quite toxic, so I try to avoid them unless absolutely nothig else works. But they do work well for a few things. You will need to distill right into the next step in many cases or stabilize the material if you don't want a flask full of acrlic polymer.

Opylation - 5-3-2020 at 10:19

I may just buy acrylic acid and it’s esters. The only thing is it is so expensive for a very minor amount. I was also thing of maybe producing acrolein from glycerol and then performing a pinnick oxidation.

draculic acid69 - 5-3-2020 at 18:56

Quote: Originally posted by Opylation  
I may just buy acrylic acid and it’s esters. The only thing is it is so expensive for a very minor amount. I was also thing of maybe producing acrolein from glycerol and then performing a pinnick oxidation.


Nilered did a video on it.