What's the story with the synth below? Haven't seen much talk on the hive about it (Trans-Beta-Methylstyrene specifically). Does it work well? It looks easy except for the absolute ethanol, that makes me want to puke! So my question is how about substituing the ethanol for methanol and is it ok to use DCM instead of Ether? Fuck it, I'm going to try it anyway. Right now!
Synthesis of Propenylbenzenes from Propiophenones by Psychokitty
Reduction of the Ketone
"Dissolve the ketone (2 g) in ethanol (10 mL) in a 50 mL round bottom flask with a magnetic stirrer. Add NaBH4 (0.4 g) over a period of 15 min. The reaction may be mildly exothermic, so do not add the hydride reagent too fast. After stirring for 15 min, add 10 mL of water, heat to reflux for 5 min, and cool to room temperature (this destroys most of the excess sodium borohydride). Wash the reaction mixture into a separatory funnel with additional water (25 mL) and diethyl ether (50 mL). Shake, separate the organic layer and wash the aqueous layer again with ether (25 mL). Combine the organic layers, wash with water (25 mL), separate, and dry the organic layer over Na2SO4."
Dehydration of the Alcohol
"In a 50 mL round bottom flask, add 0.5 g of alcohol, a magnetic stirrer, and 25 mL of a 1.5 M solution of KHSO4. Set up a distillation apparatus on top of your round bottom flask (your lab notebook has a schematic for distillation set-ups) and distill off approximately 20 mL of liquid. This procedure not only drives the dehydration reaction to completion but it also purifies your product by steam distillation. Transfer the distillate to a separatory funnel, extract the aqueous phase twice with ether (2 tms 15 mL), dry the ether solution over Na2SO4, and evaporate the ether"
regards,
FF.