Author Topic: DEA To Update Watched Chemicals List To Include Sodium Borohydride  (Read 170626 times)

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Offline uj74eer

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Re: DEA To Update Watched Chemicals List To Include Sodium Borohydride
« Reply #20 on: January 19, 2024, 02:15:55 AM »
I've been debating turning my pcl5 into thionyl chloride to avoid producing pocl3 when I need things chlorinated. The only reason I have to keep pcl5 is for vilsmeier which I haven't done in months

Personally, I would recommend keeping it as PCl5 and only synthesizing SOCl2 when you know you'll need it sometime in the next reasonable amount of time. It's a bit of a pain to purify the SOCl2 POCl3 mixture to perfection, but having SOCl2 handy when the time comes to use it is really nice. It is subject to photolysis and slowly degrades and is all around nasty stuff so I, too, prefer keeping PCl5 in storage than thionyl chloride.

The synthesis is very visually appealing though. Colorless gas + colorless solid -> colorless liquid. Very cool to see.

Offline atara

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Re: DEA To Update Watched Chemicals List To Include Sodium Borohydride
« Reply #21 on: February 19, 2024, 06:41:31 AM »
Not sure I understand the fuss about nabh4 being watched, the time spent figuring out how to get or make nabh4 could be better spent figuring out how to reduce without it

There was this chinese patent, the NaBH4 was made from Mg metal and some borax sodium carbonate, water in a ball mill: https://www.sciencemadness.org/whisper/viewthread.php?tid=158235

 One would have to make a tightly sealed ball mill, that could bee filled with argon though and afterwards wind a way to recrystallise the NaBH4 without hydrolysis. Quite a bit of a hassle and specialised equipment.
Honestly kind of overcomplicated when you can just buy the best precursor to borohydride and react it with alkali hydroxides

Offline big mac

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Re: DEA To Update Watched Chemicals List To Include Sodium Borohydride
« Reply #22 on: February 19, 2024, 10:12:46 AM »

Honestly kind of overcomplicated when you can just buy the best precursor to borohydride and react it with alkali hydroxides
What's the precursor?

Offline Loki

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Re: DEA To Update Watched Chemicals List To Include Sodium Borohydride
« Reply #23 on: February 20, 2024, 07:15:22 PM »

Honestly kind of overcomplicated when you can just buy the best precursor to borohydride and react it with alkali hydroxides
What's the precursor?

I'd be interested to know as well, because I was under the impression the easiest for the amateur would be sodium hydride and trimethyl borate. I was thinking borane and sodium hydroxide, but I am fairly sure that would produce sodium metal.

Online Osmiridium

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Re: DEA To Update Watched Chemicals List To Include Sodium Borohydride
« Reply #24 on: February 21, 2024, 01:46:49 AM »

Honestly kind of overcomplicated when you can just buy the best precursor to borohydride and react it with alkali hydroxides
What's the precursor?
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Offline Mrbovinejony

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Re: DEA To Update Watched Chemicals List To Include Sodium Borohydride
« Reply #25 on: February 21, 2024, 05:16:31 AM »
And why isn't this method used or talked about more? I see no cheap magnesium diboride or easy way to make it
« Last Edit: February 21, 2024, 05:19:02 AM by Mrbovinejony »
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Offline Rawhide Kobayashi

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Re: DEA To Update Watched Chemicals List To Include Sodium Borohydride
« Reply #26 on: February 21, 2024, 08:38:35 AM »
I read that the yields are very low like 10%, and isolating the pure borohydride without decomposition would be tricky.

Online Osmiridium

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Re: DEA To Update Watched Chemicals List To Include Sodium Borohydride
« Reply #27 on: February 21, 2024, 10:47:59 PM »
There’s no guarantee that this is what atara was talking about, but it was all One could find.
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Offline atara

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Re: DEA To Update Watched Chemicals List To Include Sodium Borohydride
« Reply #28 on: March 02, 2024, 05:33:44 AM »
Yeah I was talking about the MgB2 method. The yield is about 10% of the boron but considering the electronics that's around 40% of theory. So not awful. The nice thing about MgB2 is that it's basically completely stable and easy to store which helps make up for the huge excess.

I suspect you could get a better yield if you used a mixture of MgB2 and metallic Mg. That would improve the theoretical yield substantially.

The balanced equations:

2 MgB2 + 4 NaOH >> NaBH4 + 2 MgO + NaBO2 + 2B

2 MgB2 + 8 NaOH + Mg >> 2 NaBH4 + 4 MgO + 2 NaBO2

Using KOH instead might also increase the yield but the product KBH4 is less reactive and less soluble. No idea if it would still work for the CuCl2 bit.

Offline Kasey Jones

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Re: DEA To Update Watched Chemicals List To Include Sodium Borohydride
« Reply #29 on: March 03, 2024, 12:59:05 AM »
You're not American are you?


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