chemrox - 19-1-2007 at 22:08
A few years ago a guy from a chemical company wrote to adc and offered benzyl acetone for sale. I requested and received a sample. Just for grins,
I'm thinking of making 2-amino-4-phenyl butane as follows:
make Al/Hg amalgam and ad the ketone to it, stir in concentrated Nh4OH. Without looking anything up this seems to be the way to do it but shall look
up the refs for the shorter molecule. I don't have any CH3NH2. Instead I was going to treat the amine with CH2I and see how the yield of sec amine
comes out.
Comments, other ideas for the ketone and criticism appreciated
btw; nice smelling stuff! I bet the amine will be lovely
[Edited on 20-1-2007 by chemrox]
Furch - 20-1-2007 at 10:07
I'm sorry to say that ammonia is an utterly sucky nucleophile 
Even bubbling
gaseous ammonia through a solution of the keton gives lousy conversion to the imine....
Also, the alkylation of amines with alkylhalides (MeI) tends to give polyalkylation.
I recommend you try and make methylamine instead, or use nitromethane as methylamine source and increase the amount of reductive aluminium instead.
- Furch