Well hell yeah! Could this make rp obsolete? SWIM was finishing up a good ol' rp/I2 reaction when SWIM read this, so after hitting a tester of the finished product, SWIM went and searched through an old box of chemicals that was laying around. Low and behold, SWIM came across a big bottle of sodium sulfite.
To test the theory, SWIM placed a little iodine in a beaker. Then some of the anhydrous NaSO3 was thrown on top. The two dry chemicals were mixed, with no apparent rxn. SWIM then went to add the water required to facilitate the rxn, and accidently added what looked like probably too much. SWIM swirled the beaker contents around a little, and it appeared that only about 1/8-1/4 of the total amount of NaSO3 dissolved making the solution yellow. The rest stayed at the bottom, along with the iodine. Nothing was happening. Since SWIM only added a little bit of iodine and a lot of NaSO3, SWIM added more iodine. Swirled the shit around, still nothing. "Fuck it", SWIM thought, "maybe it just needs a little energy, one last try". SO SWIM placed the beaker on the stove burner and turned it on to about 3/4 power. There wasn't much in the beaker, so it only took about a minute to begin to boil. When this happened SWIM took the beaker off the stove (it was soft glass, didn't want to crack it), and swirled it around. This time, as soon as SWIM began to swirl, all of the iodine instantly dissolved, and it looked like about 90% of the NaSO3 dissolved. Then a wonderfull thing happened. Even though there was quite a bit of water, it began to smoke. That white smoke looked awfully good and familiar, and upon a quick wafting of the vapour from the beaker to SWIM's nostril, the umistakable smell of HI was detected. "Hey this smells like the damn rxn SWIM just ran with the rp", SWIM thought.
So, basically, as soon as SWIM's friends uncles dad gets some more pseudo, this rxn will be tested. Let me get some things straight first.
Is the eqaution like this?:
1NaSO3 + 1H2O + 1I2----->2HI + 1NaSO4
If so, this is what SWIM came up with:
Since a double molar amount of HI is needed to reduce e fully to methamphetamine, SWIM calculated a test reaction ran with four grams e. If the equation of the HI rxn is as above, then that means SWIM would technically need an equalmolar amount of NaSO3 to ephedrine (since double the molar amount of HI is produced). For four grams e HCl, that would mean about 2.5g of NaSO3 is needed (which a slight excess, like 2.7-2.8g is actually used to try to make up for effeceincy losses, and recycle most of left over iodine). As far as iodine goes, again an equalmolar amount is needed. That would mean about 5g of iodine is needed. No excess of iodine is needed, in fact SWIM figures one might get away with using less than an equalmolar amount of iodine, because I2 is reformed when HI reacts with the iodometh (technically, you could get away with adding a little over half an equalmolar amount SWIM guesses, because the half would be enough to turn all e into iodometh, and the slight excess to make enough HI to start reducing the iodometh to I2 and meth, which the I2 is reused, but for a first time SWIM doesn't wanna take that chance). Now the reaction is gonna need some water to start. Since SWIM figures that an equalmolar amount (to the e) of water is produced after it all gets turned into iodometh, only half of the H2O needed to produce the required HI will be added. SWIM doesn't want to add less than that for fear that their might not be enough, because there would be enough to get it started, but not enough is produced to finish the rxn. SWIM doesn't want to add more becuase of the nature of this type of rxn. So basically, a half molar amount of water (again to the e) is used, which is about 400mg, or .4g, or about half a milliliter. First E and I2 will be mixed dry in the rxn vessel, then the H2O will be added. After it's mixed well, the NaSO3 will be added, and the rxn vessel closed up like in a typical rp/I2 rxn (unless of course your using an open vessel and condensor). The four reagents will be mixed well, and then heated enough to start the rxn. Rxn will pretty much be treated like a regular rp/I2 rxn, keeping a close eye on the rxn clues of course (so one could work out proper rxn times, etc). When done, water will be added to the contents, and pour into a pestle and mortar. All the NaSO4 that is present will be crushed under the water as fine as possible. The rxn matrix will then be filtered, and the NaSO4 washed with a little extra water. Then workup will proceed on the rxn matrix as normally done. Washing the solution before basification of course to help get rid of extra iodine if so present.
SWIM knows it is a long post, but what do some of your guys think? It's definitely worth a try!