Sciencemadness Discussion Board

Sandmeyer Reaction of GABA to GBL/GHB

shroomyshroom - 18-12-2011 at 06:47

Hi guys

I am a new kid on the block and have only recently found a passion for organic chem...

I am wanting to give the Sandmeyer Reaction of GABA to GBL/GHB ago as it does not seem very complecated at all and I am able to get most of the things that i need to try and complete this reaction..

The only problem that i am running into is that I am not able to get my hands on any nano2 (Sodium nitrite ) as I live in Australia and this is now a watched compound thanx to people using it to manufacture bombs..

I am not asking to be spoon fed as no one learns that way but id really apprecaite a little help with a push in the right direction, like is there a substatute for Sodium nitrite you could use in the Sandmeyer Reaction of GABA to GBL/GHB... or is there a safe way to make or extract Sodium nitrite from another more accessable product ?

sorry if this is newbish to most of you just wanting to do this right the first time and not do it the wrong way

thanx shroomy

MagicJigPipe - 18-12-2011 at 16:40

Well, with this reaction remember that you are trying to create nitrous acid (HNO2). Then, the HNO2 must be protonated so that water is eliminated and you get NO+. Then, the amine attacks this electrophile (NO+) to form some intermediate whose name I don't know. Then, water is eliminated from this intermediate to give the diazonium salt. Usually, at this point, a copper (I) salt is used to replace the N2+ but because water is used I think it is attacked by OH- instead.

Anyway, everything's better once you have even a small understanding of that. The question you need to ask yourself is: "How can I form HNO2 in solution?" The easiest route is, of course, a nitrite salt in the presence of a strong acid. Unless you have access to HNO2 I can see no easy way to get around this.


Check this out, though:

http://www.sciencemadness.org/talk/viewthread.php?tid=52

Also, I think that, if there is the possibility of formation of NO3- (which there is) there is the risk of forming nitrosamines which are carcinogenic. It's pretty obvious to me that someone will probably ingest some of this stuff at some point. I'd try to avoid doing that if I were you.

And it's NaNO2. It's annoying and sometimes confusing when people write element symbols in the wrong case. Please, reduce your laziness and refrain from doing so in the future (at the very least it makes you look more like you know what you're doing/saying).

Also, I would certainly not be surprised if this ended up in detritus for 4 reasons:

a) You are asking about illegal drug synthesis with your first post

b) You apparently haven't done much searching on this yourself

c) Your name is shroomyshroom. Combine this with a) and b) and it begins to paint a bad picture.

d) That element symbol capitalization thing just makes it worse in my opinion