Find the difference in heat of formations for...

[k0dog]

ketamine and its precursors...

precursor + energy ---> ketamine

but how would you calculate the difference in energys?

[terbium]

Burn samples of the precursors and product in a calorimeter.

[k0dog]

is there not a non-emperical way to do it... I mean... I could I suppose... but I woudl rather just do some calculations and stuff... also i ahve no appartus..

[Rhodium]

No, you need to experiment to get experimental results. It is impossible to predict all possible energies of all possible transition states to find out the activation energy.

[Chromic]

k0dog was just talking about calculating the heat of formation of ketamine and its direct precursor. Presumably he means 1-hydroxycyclopentyl-(o-chlorophenyl)-ketone N-methylimine and ketamine (or maybe he means ketamine hydrochloride and ketamine), but maybe I'm giving him too much credit.

There is a way to calculate the heat of formation of starting material and product, IIRC. Then you can calculate the change of energy... but...

As Rhodium said this doesn't give you activation energies, so it tells you no useful information. Chemistry is more about kinetics (i.e. information about activation energies) than thermodynamics.

[k0dog]

I definetly was talking about 1-hydroxycyclopentyl-(o-chlorophenyl)-ketone N-methylimine.. or as I call it....(rather my chem program...
1-((2-chlorophenyl)(imino)methyl)cyclopentanol

anyways.... I however much it will not help me... want to get the different heats of formation for this compund and ketamine.

If anyone well... has access to a lab that has appartus.. let me know.. maybe we can chat about the "setup".. and such...