Plain Cathinone might be a bit harder than the N-alkyl variants, hexamine via a Gabriel Synthesis should do it. The use of a-bromopropiophenone is well documented for the preparation of Methcathinone and other variants.

Made racemic cathinone from oxidation of racemic PPA from decarboxylative condensation of Benzaldehyde and Alanine. A simple oxidation using Jones reagent was performed. Yields are shitty ( 35-40 % molar) but works and didnt really looked into optimization.

EDIT: Sorry miss the part where alpha-halopropiophenones were the required substrate.

for all the trouble why not make some 4-mar i did it very easy a few kinks in the workup but very easy nonetheless
p.s. don't be stupid with 4-mar i was turned pale white and started shaking violently but before that i felt great it was like being on ecstacy for 24 hours.

Are you talking to me ? I thought I made myself clear that I used racemic PPA (i.e 4 stereoisomers). If you have a clean resolution procedure to isolate dl-phenylpropanolamine please enlighten me.

Answer? In 2004 Glennon, et al investigated the effects of B-oxygenated PEA/PPA's and used Hexamine on the bromoketone (thank Nicodem for pointing that out - I'd read it, but not SEEN it). Yeah, you are right - although IIRC the Delepine reaction is only when it is done with a benzyl ketone halide isn't it? With subsequent hydrolysis to the benzaldehyde? This is kind of in the middle of Gabriel & Delepine, they are very similar mechanically - Delepine doesn't own all reactions of aliphatic halides with HMTA because He has a named reaction with the Benzyl ones & HMTA (here). Yes, he only does so with the phenacyl bromide, the others (the propiophenones) he avoids by FC Acylation of the 2,5-dimethoxy-bromobenzene with N-Trifluoroacetyl-alaninoyl chloride. That is a reaction I'm looking at - quite frankly, if the fucking write-ups can agree about the products of citric acid + Cl[/sub]2[/sub](aq) (pH <3 favors the penta- and hexachloroacetone while anything nearing pH=7 gives predominantly CHCl₃), then the production of N-trichloroacetyl-alanine would be easy enough (from the hexachloroacetone).

I'm working with a couple of people over @WD on working out a synthesis of oxalyl chloride using only chlorine, sunlight, ethylene glycol and trichloroacetic acid, so if we solve the TCA problem, we may well have solved that one too.

***Are you talking to me ? I thought I made myself clear that I used racemic PPA (i.e 4 stereoisomers). If you have a clean resolution procedure to isolate dl-phenylpropanolamine please enlighten me***

i had racemic too you don't resolve steroisomers.
after extraction of the base and that's another story too, you have this oil half of it is 4-methyl-2-amino-5-phenyloxaoline the other half is the cyclic amide the oxazolidinone.
4-mar is easily recrystallized from toulene or other alkyl benzenes the cyclic amide easily goes into the toulene,  the whole process was so easy i shat myself (not really)

as to a commercial source it was procured by somebody with a dea licence from a major chemical suppplier, i don't think i'll get anymore anytime soon.
bah humbug!

Sounds good, will give it a spin this weekend and let you know.

Ill buy diapers just in case .

just follow that formula on the hivethread it's actually a dea monogram would'nt you know i'm on that thread too (spooky!)
do you have cyanates?
also the workup is'nt so straightforward.
i had to neutralize with na(II)co3 and then salt it out and use isopropanol to extract it that worked beautifully.
just let me know and you'll be "feeling so real!"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQ--gQsV45Y

Yeah I have sodium AND potassium cyanate sitting on the shelves  and some freshly prepared PPA too. Figured its pretty straighforward, reflux the hydrochloride in water with 1 equivalent of cyanate and then form the oxazoline with 2 M HCl at reflux right ? Guess what youre adding to it is that youre washing the post reaction mixture to remove the unreacted urea with a NP ?
Then base and wash with hot water to remove PPA impurities. Is that about right ?

you could wash out the amide impurity that way, sure.
what i'm saying is you might have a tough time getting the 4-mar freebase so that's how i did it.
actually you use 1.1 eq to account for decomp during the heating it gets destroyed by the acid anyway just good sense.
when i tried it i was like "awww this feels good!"
then i kept doing and doing it maybe 200 mg's or so and that was a bad mistake.

Always wondered, is it the hydrochloride or the freebase that yields ice-like shards ?

it's pretty damn hygroscopic the the base was yellow gummy and amorphous i think the base properly crystalized with no impurities gives the shards.
but i'd convert it to the hydrochloride.
just how you do that i'm not sure i think it was gassed in ether and the ether has to be evaped and rinse with more ether to get it to crystalize it's a pain in the arse.

Well you gave me enough to be pretty tempted, Ill report back on the whole thing. No worries.

yeah the base is real hygroscopic you could probably just titrate with hcl and azetrope it out i bet that would work.

don't kill yourself with that stuff it's 4 times the potency of meth i would'nt do more than 20mg's in hindsight.
it does'nt produce the compulsion to do more but it feels pretty good.
the dose response curve with regards to seizure threshold is very steep making it extremelly dangerous.
that and you get this pressure in your head like it's going to explode so heed my warnings.

LOL, thaks for your concerns jon, youre a true pal . I knew about the steepness of dose/response, heard also it was in the same category as horse stimulants .

Answer? In 2004 Glennon, et al investigated the effects of B-oxygenated PEA/PPA's and used Hexamine on the bromoketone (thank Nicodem for pointing that out - I'd read it, but not SEEN it). Yeah, you are right - although IIRC the Delepine reaction is only when it is done with a benzyl ketone halide isn't it? With subsequent hydrolysis to the benzaldehyde? This is kind of in the middle of Gabriel & Delepine, they are very similar mechanically - Delepine doesn't own all reactions of aliphatic halides with HMTA because He has a named reaction with the Benzyl ones & HMTA (here). Yes, he only does so with the phenacyl bromide, the others (the propiophenones) he avoids by FC Acylation of the 2,5-dimethoxy-bromobenzene with N-Trifluoroacetyl-alaninoyl chloride. That is a reaction I'm looking at - quite frankly, if the fucking write-ups can agree about the products of citric acid + Cl[/sub]2[/sub](aq) (pH <3 favors the penta- and hexachloroacetone while anything nearing pH=7 gives predominantly CHCl₃), then the production of N-trichloroacetyl-alanine would be easy enough (from the hexachloroacetone).

I'm working with a couple of people over @WD on working out a synthesis of oxalyl chloride using only chlorine, sunlight, ethylene glycol and trichloroacetic acid, so if we solve the TCA problem, we may well have solved that one too.

ok thanks for the info, but I really dont want to do anything with protected-alaninoyl chloride because i've already got the substitued propiophenone... do you have any informtaion about HMTA reaction on a-halogenoketone (sec-ketone) ? Is it possible with long time reflux in CHCl3 or any suitable solvent ? Do you think using here benzylamine wouldn't dimerise to the pyrazine, then I can swap out the benzyl with soft CTH on the hydrochloride or maybe CAN oxidation ?