Aurelius, to the best of my knowledge, nobody knows exactly what's happened to the bee you mention. Fingers crossed he's safe...
2-methylamino-1-phenylbutane is a pet project of mine, mainly because of it's legal status, but also because it's a cheap way to test new methods before wasting more valuable precursors.
I made it from the corresponding ephedrine analogue (which was made from benzene -> butyrophenone -> methcathinone analogue), but after a crappy workup put me in a really bad mood, I threw away the 6g impure salt which refused to precipitate after titration of the freebase... Hence I'm yet to bioassay it.
tropine: I'd be cautious if you're planning on using methyllithium instead of the weaker methylmagnesium halide, as it may well work as an efficient base, deprotonating the benzylic carbon of the phenylacetaldehyde methylimine. I've tried a Grignard with ethylmagnesium iodide on the
similar benzyl cyanide, only to be left with a strange smelling orange goo, which I suspect is formed by deprotonation of the benzylic carbon of benzyl cyanide, and subsequent attack by this on another molecule of benzyl cyanide. The end result is a trimer: 6-benzyl-3,5-diphenyl-pyridine-2,4-diyldiamine (courtesy of Beilstein). I'm not sure how much of a problem this will be with the N-methyl imine instead of the nitrile; deprotonation would still be favourable, going on the stability of primary vs. benzylic carbanions. This may not be a problem of course: Rhodium has a very respectable yield of amphetamine in his
One Pot Amphetamine synth from BzCN, MeI and NaBH4
(
https://www.thevespiary.org/rhodium/Rhodium/chemistry/amphetamine.html); low temperature and high dilution (hence
slow addition) favour the desired reaction.
I'm intrigued about 1-phenyl-2-pyrrolidinylbutane; very similar in structure to Prolintane.
Do you have any more details, roger? Specifically on effects, as the synthesis would be really easy, either from phenyl-2-butanone, or via reduction of the cathinone analogue 1-phenyl-2-(1-pyrrolidinyl)-1-butanone...
Vitus, I'm not sure if you'll beat me to 2-methylamino-1-phenylbutane or not; I'll post details too, whenever I get there. From one method, I have some 1,2-epoxide which I'll hopefully be able to rearrange to phenyl-2-butanone (LiI was unsuccessful); whether that works or not, triethylaluminium on benzyl cyanide should do the job, as per a slight modification of
P2P by Trimethylaluminium alkylation of Benzyl cyanide
(
https://www.thevespiary.org/rhodium/Rhodium/chemistry/phenylacetone.html#me3al), a method which seems to initially come from
Aust. J. Chem, 23, (1970), 1921-1937, in which trimethylaluminium is reacted with 4-fluorobenzyl cyanide to give 4-fluorophenylacetone.
I'll post any relevant details once I retrieve the article.