Chloral

[kreo]

In Smoothes Chloral Hydrate synthesis on Rhodium's webpage, does anybee know, experimentally, if h2o present in the ethanol would interfere with chlorination with chlorine gas?

[ning]

as the water may allow some overoxidation to occur, but probably not of consequence if you are using concentrated alcohol (95%+).

[dr_moeselmann]

is it sufficient to just bubble the chlorine gas through the boiling alcohol and to let the non-adsorbed gas float away and do you have to install a device that would create pressure to get the gas through or is there enough pressure during formation of the gas? thancs

[welt]

There should be plenty of pressure to get the gas through
I assume there would just normal pressure above the alcohol (not a sealed boiling container)
I think it would be wise to put some kind of trap to prevent any thing getting sucked back if the pressure drops

[xxxxx]

i asked whether magnesium hypochlorite added to ethanol would form chloral and people said it might work. the idea was to add magnesium sulfate (epsom salts) to aqueous sodium hypochlorite to form magnesium hypochlorite and sodium sulfate. then adding ethanol. supposedly magnesium oxide should precipitate immediatly and chloral hydrate should precipitate a few hours later. maybe you could try this as a favor to me before you begin generating chlorine under pressure.

[dr_moeselmann]

bo, i think the chlorine gas is produced much too slow in a mixture of hcl/mno4 in order not to get lost through minimal rifts in your reaction devices and thus never reaching an appropriate pressure. is this the reason why you've got to use something like an aerator? anyway, how long does it take until ca 100ml of hcl and,  say, 3 grams of mno4 have been fully reacted?
@xxx: do you know the chlorinating tabs for swimming pools? i guess they'd also work. anyone attempted this?