"have a large wet towel in readiness to control the vigour of the subsequent reaction."
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"When you're hitchhiking, always carry a towel." hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy
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Mess comes in various guises. Folks who keep abreast of current events might choose to use one of the 2 or 3 ways Antoncho lately uncovered for preparing alkali metal alkoxides (Post 257912 (https://www.thevespiary.org/talk/index.php?topic=11282.msg25791200#msg25791200)
(Antoncho: "Alkali metal alkoxides: finally, OTC!", Novel Discourse) et seq.) like sodium ethoxide, for those to whom buying it would bee almost as messy as making it with sodium.
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Acetoacetic ester is another one of those things, that it's easy to make if you have bases like metal alkoxides, and hard without.
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Seems like this might bee worth looking into. The anhydrous organic phases of this reaction, including making ethyl acetoacetate and then reacting it with benzyl halide, each in the presence of sodium ethoxide, are significantly difficult for the chemistry homeworker. Having to really keep the wet air away from everything takes a bit of practice.
But that decarboxylation, in room-temperature dilute lye, followed by refluxing in acid, is so easy it would seem to make up for the exigencies undergone. Like a vacation.
a half a pints a half a pound a half a world a half a round
Sidearm n. Flask neck tube.
It seems to be a variation on the theme found in the classic Organic Synthesis method ( https://www.thevespiary.org/rhodium/Rhodium/chemistry/phenylacetone.html#benzylcyanide (https://www.thevespiary.org/rhodium/Rhodium/chemistry/phenylacetone.html#benzylcyanide)
) but with the intermediate being the ethyl ester instead of the nitrile. It gets a thumbs up from me, as the starting material is benzyl chloride/benzyl alcohol, instead of benzyl cyanide, thereby saving the chemist one potentially dangerous step (substitution of benzyl chloride with sodium cyanide).
Nobody around here wants to make sodium ethoxide with sodium in alcohol, Zed. Not cost effective. We'd rather use lye (NaOH) dissolved in alcohol then add unslaked lime (CaO), and filter off its precipitate to give our solution of sodium ethoxide in ethanol, as Antoncho ordered us to do in Post 257912 (https://www.thevespiary.org/talk/index.php?topic=11282.msg25791200#msg25791200)
(Antoncho: "Alkali metal alkoxides: finally, OTC!", Novel Discourse). Or pull an equivalent trick with CaC, calcium carbide. That makes this amphetamine derivation lots easier, quicker and cheaper.
a half a pints a half a pound a half a world a half a round
Sidearm n. Flask neck tube.