Sciencemadness Discussion Board

Purification of acetone peroxide

madscientist - 4-7-2002 at 21:06

I thought it would be an interesting challenge to attempt to prepare reasonably pure trimeric acetone peroxide. I have read in chemistry journals that preparing acetone peroxide from acetone, hydrogen peroxide, and an inorganic acid at 0C yields a product that is 90% trimeric acetone peroxide, and 10% dimeric acetone peroxide. Dimeric acetone peroxide, contrary to popular belief, is not identical in composition to trimeric acetone peroxide with the exception of it being a dimer. The structure of dimeric acetone peroxide is as follows:



I believe that dimeric acetone peroxide would be weakly acidic. And so, here is my proposed method for preparing straight trimeric acetone peroxide:

Place 3.2g of acetone peroxide in 50mL of ethanol. Add 2g of NaOH. Allow it to react for several minutes. Then, allow all of the ethanol to evaporate. Pour 50mL of toluene onto the crystals (I'm guessing that the sodium salt of dimeric acetone peroxide would be *extremely* unstable - be careful if you try this!), and filter. Allow the filtered toluene solution of trimeric acetone peroxide to evaporate. The crystals remaining should be high-purity trimeric acetone peroxide.

The sodium salt of dimeric acetone peroxide would not be soluble in toluene because it would be ionic. The excess NaOH would not dissolve in the toluene either, because it is also ionic. Trimeric acetone peroxide, however, is non-polar, and so dissolves readily in toluene.

I have added this to my elephantine to-do list. :) Results coming someday.

??

raistlin - 6-7-2002 at 14:04

My teacher has a slight idea as to what might be able to make it a slightly more stable compound. Ill e-mail the info as soon as I can, or I will just post it on the board.....

Raistlin

PHILOU Zrealone - 8-9-2002 at 11:41

Peroxydes are unstable in alkaline media!
Then to stabilise H2O2 it is not rare to see in the ingredient list:
H3PO4, CCl3-CO2H, H2SO4 what are strong acids!
If you treat CTAP with NaOH, you will simply loose your batch!:(

Why would HO-C(CH3)2-O-O-C(CH3)2-OH be acidic?
Why wouldn't it be (CH3)2C(-O-O-)2C(CH3)2?
Since aceton peroxyde formation, cyclisation, polymerisation is catalysed by strong acids like HCl, H2SO4; what do you expect from a strong base, will it reverse the reaction or help it?

Don't tell me I know the answers! :P

PH Z

Adas - 26-11-2011 at 09:05

Quote: Originally posted by PHILOU Zrealone  

If you treat CTAP with NaOH, you will simply loose your batch!:(


I strongly disagree. Few days ago, I put HOT! NaOH solution on TATP. I hoped it will destroy lower peroxides, but it didn't, all the AP was undamaged...

And, madscientist, your structure is incorrect, on one side must be just -OH group, not -OOH at both sides for a simple reason: Upon dehydration, there would be -OOO- group (impossible)

[Edited on 26-11-2011 by Adas]

KemiRockarFett - 29-11-2011 at 16:52

Separate the dimer from the trimer by using their different sublimation rate. I think this is mentioned in Federof...