Sciencemadness Discussion Board

Peroxide formation risk?

Refinery - 30-6-2020 at 06:10

In a synthesis a substance is oxidized with air and manganese acetate. The synthesis uses GAA as solvent. If it is substituted with acetone, could there be a risk of peroxide formation?

DavidJR - 1-7-2020 at 02:24

I doubt it.

Tsjerk - 1-7-2020 at 03:32

If there is a strong acid and peroxide present, yes.

Refinery - 1-7-2020 at 06:35

I really do not want to blow up my lab, but acetone would make the process so much more convenient. In this case, there would be only present the acetone, catalyst, atmospheric oxygen and the resulting carboxylic acid.

Refinery - 29-11-2020 at 15:03

A Bayer-Villiger reaction asks to use acetic acid, perborate and acetone as a reaction mixture. I was worried if this could cause formation of acetone peroxides in any circumstances? This would cause major safety risk when processing the completed reaction as the possible peroxides would concentrate upon removal of extraction solvent and eventually when distilling the target molecule. Is there any risk of peroxide formation, and can it be determined safely if?

There were some studies I found that noted AP could not be made with perborate, but it was noticed with percarbonate due to solubility matters, but they used strong acid. Somewhere was stated that mono- and dimeric peroxides form spontaneously if H2O2 concentration is too high without any acid.

Justin Blaise - 29-11-2020 at 15:39

Unless you're trying to make methyl acetate, I don't think acetone is a wise addition to your Baeyer-Villiger reaction.

I am not sure what the conditions are in the reaction you're talking about in the original post. Some more details would probably help us be better able to understand what you're trying to do. I will say, though, that acetone and acetic acid are very different solvents and simply switching the highly polar, acidic solvent for a comparatively lower polarity, enolizable, neutral solvent may just shut your reaction down.