i was wondering about making chloral hydrate in the following manor:
first prep and isolate ethanal by distillation off a ethnol/H20/HOCl soltn. ethanal boils at just a little over room temp.
then add the ethanal to a soltn of H20/NaOH about 3mols of NaOH/mol of ethanal.
then add to this a solutin of chlorine water with abit more then 3mols of Cl2 for every mol of ethanal.
some chloroform/formic acid would proboly be made as a byprouct, but these should be seperable by distllation.
finally the trichlroethanal would have to be hydrated, i don't know how this would best done.