Sciencemadness Discussion Board

possible ppa synthesis

chemchem - 19-3-2005 at 17:35

please can anyone help ?because i love chemistry and like reading about various rections ,for imformational purposes only ,will this work? one takes some benzaldehyde and boils it nice and hot in a flask. once it is nice and hot one would add finely ground amino acid alanine to the flask. ratios should be half the amount alanine > benzaldehyde by weight. once hot enough a bubbling reaction takes place and co2 is released.one must be sure not to go above 180 degrees c. once co2 emission ceases the reaction is complete .once cooled one would extract solution with toluene and discard whatevers left in flask.depending on color of extract one could even add a bit of activated charcoal to wash it a bit.solvent can then be distilled off to leave phenylpropanolamine freebase or converted to the HCI with dry HCI gas. how much product one will obtain i dont know as i havent tryed this but have herd differing reports. please to put my mind at ease , does this reaction ,yes in festers 6th book actually work?? are yealds really low?? has anyone known of it working ? sounds like it would. i know ppa may be a controlled substance in some countries but this is pure research for a chemistry paper at school ?? thanks

good grief

Polverone - 19-3-2005 at 18:20

wrong:

please can anyone help ?

also wrong:

pLeASe cAn AnYoNE HELP ?

right:

Please, can anyone help?

...

Now, to answer your question so you don't come back under yet another name and ask it again: yes, alanine will react with hot benzaldehyde to produce phenylpropanolamine. I believe that from 100 g of benzaldehyde and 65 g of alanine, 30 g of phenylpropanolamine would be a reasonable yield to expect after heating the reactants together until they cease to evolve CO2. I can't offer further details, but I'm sure that a chemistry student such as yourself will investigate this reaction further in the library or the lab.