Is this ephedrine synth really possible????

[uncle_buck]

"Ephedrine from Benzaldehyde and D-L Alanine, Heat to yield CO2 + ephedrine."

Does this really work?  Will pure l-isomer alanine work as well?  Is it just the benzaldehyde and alanine in equimolar ratio or some other ratio?  No solvent mentioned, so none needed, I suppose?

Thanks Hive gurus!

ub

[Bandil]

Hi!

I think you are confusing PPA and eph. By using the alanine + BA one will get PPA and not eph. To get eph you would have to use N-methyl-alanine, which is not so easy to come by as alanine.

As for solvent i belive you can find the answer by UTFSE.

Regards
Bandil

[uncle_buck]

PPA, gotcha.  I will FS for the solvent info U'ing TE.

[Aurelius]

use toluene or xylene as the solvent (although aurelius believes one may not be absolutely necessary- may even raise yeild)  if picking between the two above, choose xylene, it has a higher boiling point (all three isomers are higher than toluene)  and this allows for a better high boiling solvent for the decarboxylation that occurs at elevated temps.