ethanolamines

[tvs17]

Does anyone know products where mono-, di- or triethanolamine is used(so it can be refined from them)? Or any useful synthesises. I found some information about them but it's not very useful.
Thanks!

[Rhadon]

Ethanolamines can be synthesized by acetaldehyde and NH3.

[tvs17]

Yes, I know. But when I could buy acetaldehyde, I could certainly buy the less dangerous ethanolamines. Acetaldehyde can be synthesised by reaction of acetylene with Hg2+ salts but, that's really very much trouble for some ethanolamines. And besides that, acetaldehyde is MUCH more expensive compared to the ethanolamines, so it wouldn't be very economical also.
I've heard they use ethanolamine as an industrial chemical for cleaning things. But I've never seen it. So I was hoping someone knew some kind of source, or another method of synthesizing.

[CodeMason]

I assume you can make acetaldehyde by bubbling acetylene through water.

<font face="courier new" size="2">HC:CH + H₂O -> CH₃CHO</font>

However I don't think you want to play with this nasty crap anyway, it's very carcinogenic and mutagenic.

[tvs17]

You are partially correct, acetylene does react with water to ethanal but only when a Hg2+ catalyst is present.
A lot of chemicals are carcenogenic, but if you work correctly there should be no real fear for this, in principle. Same goes also for far more toxic and carcenogenic materials like hydrazine and toluidine.
BTW, most carcenogenic materials only are really carcenogenic on long term exposure, so even less risk.