Sciencemadness Discussion Board

Reduction of HMTD

Mike - 1-2-2004 at 15:50

Hi,

Is it possible to reduce HMTD to tri(hydroxymethyl)amine? If yes, how to proceed a save reduction of HMTD or other organic peroxides?

KABOOOM(pyrojustforfun) - 2-2-2004 at 13:45

the problem is HMTD has very low solublities in most solvents.
if your goal is trimethylolamine it's a formaldehyde ammonia condensation product which exists in solutions of formaldehyde and ammonia (or aq sol of hexamine) as a equilibration product but I strongly doubt it could ever been isolated.

Mike - 2-2-2004 at 15:53

Yeah, I’m thinking how to synthesize trimethylolamine. Is it possible to have it in pure form? I had never seen a preparation of it. I don't think that trimethylolamine transforms to hexamine but it just can't be form via formaldehyde/ammonia reaction for some other reason. Maybe I'm wrong.