Butyric Acid?

[Unsunghero]

Ok first of all butyric acid is simply butanoic acid...for some reason the IUPAC chose to name it funny...

Anyways the structure is simple enough...

OH
|
C-C-C-C=O

It won't let me move the OH to the final C, but it's supposed to be there.

So my idea...I have all the necessary materials.

Using a refilling hose for a lighter, butane from said lighter is bubbled through highly concentrated hydrogen peroxide, this SHOULD oxidize it. I am not sure the exact effect this will have, and I can't find anything on it on google. Would this result in the double bonded oxygen listed above?

After this adding the hydroxide group...I was thinking of adding a metal hydroxide high on the activity table at 1st (such as NaOH, or MgOH) however it seems that this would simply kick out a hydrogen in favor of said high activity metal...
This part I am truly stumped about.

I know this is something rather simple but google has shed light on nothing so far, I've tried all 2 names I could think of it being listed as: Butanoic acid, and butyric.

Any ideas on this? I hope you don't consider this 1+1 chem...

The butyric acid is just for experimenting, I want to experiment with some esters, I especially want to find the ester of rancid butter, reputably so horrible as to induce vomiting. Though the butyric acid is pretty bad on it's own...
__________________

[Alexires]

UTFSE - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butyric_acid

Otherwise, you would need to oxidise a butan-1-ol -> butan-1-al -> butanoic acid. This is high school chemistry......

For this, you would need to actually look up the synthesis of the functional group (in this case, carboxylic acid) and would find that
Carboxylic acids can be produced by oxidation of primary alcohols or aldehydes with strong oxidants such as Potassium Dichromate, Jones reagent, potassium permanganate, or sodium chlorite.

[Unsunghero]

Ok, as I said I DID use the search engine, the thing I was asking is Would the hydrogen peroxide sufficiently oxidize it at 35% concentration. This is NOT high school chemistry, I got a 5 (it was a 93%) on my chemistry II AP test, and never learned anything about practical synthesis. This was taken last year.

I obviously didn't know that there was a specific way to synthesize each functional group, I didn't even know what butan-1-ol was until I searched it, because we learn to put the functional group labeling before everything else. We are docked quite a bit of points for getting the order wrong.

Another thing you fail to realize is that I was not asking the GENERAL synthesis for butyric acid, I was merely asking if the process I described or a modified version of said process would work. If I wanted to find out how to synthesize butyric acid I could have easy enough. Notice that I don't ask one time in my post how to synthesize butyric acid.

So you insult me for asking something that I didn't even ask, though the information you gave is relevant obviously : ).

Thank you for the helpful part of your post, but the scathing beginning of your post offended me a little bit. To turn your nose at the pondering of someone who has researched (I haven't experimented as of now though) is a quick way to turn some of our kind away.

If you think we don't want that, think about this: in 15 years let's say the amount of chemists, hobbyists, etc has decreased by 40%. Once this has been done chemical regulations will obviously become more strict, this is intrinsic to the loss of a specific sector (let's look at the lessening amount of gun owners and the converse effect to regulations.) Anyways, just some food for thought...

[Alexires]

See here (http://www.acdlabs.com/iupac/nomenclature/93/r93_337.htm) for IUPAC Rules of Nomenclature.

Of special interest to you will be the example given at the bottom, Pent-4-en-2-ol. Note the numbers in the middle of the functional groups.

Telling you to use the fucking search engine is not insulting. If you found it so, I suggest you grow a thicker skin because it is a commonly used acronym around here.

Inventing a synthesis based upon no kind of reference material or experimentation is dangerously close to being a Mr. Wizard.

I have searched for a while now, and the closest I have come is either the synthesis of acetic acid using butane and H2O2 or making ketones using H2O2 and an alkane. You MAY be able to synth Butanoic Acid using a longer hydrocarbon such as Hexane and the method mentioned above.

Either way, that probably isn't what you are looking for.

Thank you for the helpful part of your post, but the scathing beginning of your post offended me a little bit. To turn your nose at the pondering of someone who has researched (I haven't experimented as of now though) is a quick way to turn some of our kind away.

I turn my nose up at someone that seemingly pulls something such out of their ass with no references and I have no problem turning such people away.

I think perhaps you should take away what I have offered you (synthesis via oxidation of the primary alcohol) and shut the hell up unless you actually have some kind of source for some Mr. Wizard shit like that posted in your opening post.

[tapira1]

By no means to my knowledge could you be able to prepare butyric acid from butane and hydrogen peroxide. Perhaps the best way to go is that already suggested: Take butan-1-ol, oxidize it to the aldehyde (CrO3 or dichromate/H2SO4 for example) and then to the acid. In many places, butyraldehyde (butanal) is commercially available (tech. grade).