hydrochloride and sulfate

[m29t]

Hi... me again I found some other kind of pills that have 120mg and 60mg of pseudoephedrine but some of them are pseudoephedrine hydrochloride and pseudoephedrine sulfate
does that make a diference or can I use either.Thanks...

[geezmeister]

Don't react the pseudo sulfate. Freebase it and gas or titrate with HCl to make the pseudoHCl. The sulfate form does not react well.

[m29t]

I will try it and see how it goes, thanks alot...This has been very helpfull.

[Kinetic]

By 'will try it' I hope you don't mean you'll try reacting the sulfate salt in an HI/P reduction.

Geeze is almost correct; in fact, the sulfate reacts a little too well, as the sulfate (SO₄^2-) ion is reduced to hydrogen sulfide (H₂S) by HI (as well as by many other reagents, including formic acid). The chloride ion cannot be reduced by HI so - as Geeze said - the hydrochloride salt is the better choice. Causing avoidable side reactions is never wise.

According to an article in the journal C. R. Hebd. Seances Acad. Sci., 152 (1911), 441-441, a 99% yield of H₂S is obtained when reacting sulfuric acid with aqueous HI in the presence of phosphorous acid, H₃PO₃. These are the exact conditions you'll be exposing the salt to in your reaction.

[the_wasper]