Sciencemadness Discussion Board

zinc and water to decarboxolate phenylalanine to an alcohol

solo - 10-12-2002 at 11:10

Prior to Gringard there was zinc and it was used widely to do many reductions halogenations and combined with chloride and HCl that is still true today. I've been looking for info on reduction of the carboxylic acid of pheneylalanine and it s conversion to an alcohol.......any suggestions or has anyone any references .......thanks:D

Re: phenylalanine >>>>alcohol

solo - 10-1-2003 at 21:12

?"R\uccess, so sodium borohydride will work with H2SO4 since it's a more selective carbonyl reducing agent, no need to worry about the amine group since it won't be effected.

see http://www.rhodium.ws/pdf/borohydride-iodine.pdf

.............solo

hmmm

Polverone - 10-1-2003 at 23:07

Sodium borohydride and phenylalanine are both pretty expensive. Isn't this is a rather costly route to amphetamine? And it needs sodium borohydride, which I would assume is at least informally watched.

RE: cost and availability............

solo - 11-1-2003 at 16:18

Well as a nutritional additive 1kg sells for $340 sodium borohydride sells for 500gr. for $100 , as you know sodium borohydride is used to make fuel cells and as a medium to store hydrogen in the batteries........it may be watched but not prohibited from acquisition.

........................solo

Ref: Phenylalanine Reduction to something useful.....

solo - 20-11-2004 at 08:34

Here is another way to possibly reduce this amino acid to something useful.......


C6H5-CH2-CH(-NH2)-COOH-->C6H5-CH=C(-NH2)-COOH
........(Phenylalanine)

My first thought is to dehydrate the compound in a reflux of H2SO4 , which being acidic it will not disturb the NH2 and may just remove the H from the #2C and establish a stable double bond between C1and C2 as opposed to C2and C3.

The interest underlying would be to catalytic hydrogenate the allyl compound with Pd and CH3CH2OH to the alcohol and even down to the alkane .......solo

Ref: Phenylalanine Reduction to something useful.....

solo - 26-11-2004 at 13:34

Now it's been documented the reduction of phenyalanine to the alcohol Phenylalaninol using NaBH4/I + H2SO4 and needing THF as a solvent. This method doesn't employ either Iodine nor H2SO4.........solo
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Transition Metal Compound Mediated Reduction of
-Amino Acids to 1,2-Amino Alcohols with NaBH4 in
Water

Ayhan S. DEM_IR, _Idris M. AKHMEDOV, ¨O. S ES ENO GLU

Turk J. Chem. (1999),23,2123-126

Abstract
A new efficient and cost-effective method for the preparation of 1,2-amino alcohols is described.
The reactions of amino acids with NaBH4 in the presence of NiCl 2 or MoO3 in water give 1,2-amino alcohols in high yield. When optically pure amino acids were used, optically pure 1,2-amino alcohols were obtained.

read more ....

Attachment: Transition Metal Compound Mediated Reduction of -Amino Acids to 1,2-Amino Alcohols with NaBH4 in Water (Turk J. Chem 19 (97kB)
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Organikum - 27-11-2004 at 03:18

I came to the believe that the only useful way of processing the l-phenylalanine of trade to something more useful is a hypochlorite degradation to benzylcyanide and working with this, either by making PAA or P2P as well known.

l-phenylalanine has just the wrong stereochemistry and d or d/l-phenylalanine is expensive and hard to get, at least for me.