Hockeydemon
Hazard to Others
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1-butanol dehydrogenation via heated copper
I was hoping to dehydrogenate 1-butanol by heating up a coil of copper wire that I have laying around, and suspending it above a beaker of 1-butanol.
I figured this was fairly easy, and straight forward because of this lab
However when I performed it small scale not much took place. Upon further reading it appears that this process is usually done in a tube furnace with
a inert carrier gas.
Is this an impractical method without having a way to vaporize the alcohol with an inert gas to prevent ignition?
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Magpie
lab constructor
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Here's some interesting reading on attempts to make acetaldehyde:
http://www.sciencemadness.org/talk/viewthread.php?tid=55&...
I suspect making butraldehyde isn't all that easy either.
The single most important condition for a successful synthesis is good mixing - Nicodem
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kch
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Depending on how badly you need it, you could try this:
-Oxidize primary alcohol to butanoic acid using KMnO4 or Jones'
-Reflux with SOCl2 to butanoyl chloride
-Reduce with NaBH4 over dry ice to give the aldehyde
It's not really economical, but I think it's possible for the amateur to perform
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Metacelsus
International Hazard
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Thionyl chloride, sodium borohydride and dry ice  ? Just use pyridinium
chlorochromate!
It would probably be cheapest to just buy the butyraldehyde.
Also, you could condense acetaldehyde (good luck getting that!) to form crotonaldehyde and hydrogenate it.
http://www.organic-chemistry.org/chemicals/oxidations/pyridi...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crotonaldehyde
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butyraldehyde
[Edit] Added sources
[Edited on 5-8-2013 by Cheddite Cheese]
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kch
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I'm learning here, bear with me 
<!-- bfesser_edit_tag -->[<a href="u2u.php?action=send&username=bfesser">bfesser</a>: removed
quote of entire preceding post]
[Edited on 6.8.13 by bfesser]
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