Step 2 in your synthesis is still a major problem.
One of my Russian friends reported the overall yield of ~7% from the procedure with sodium ethyl sulfate from Rhodium's.
He was sloppy though. SWIM tried to repeat this and got smth more similar to 0%
He wasn't that sloppy but still
was sloppy. It's hard not to bee sloppy when filtering Ca salts
.
But now with a couple of patents that PolytheneSam gave me links to (deal w/easy filtering), and the proc. of getting 98% ethylsulfuric acid from 95% ethanol and H2SO4... I think that might bee a viable route. A really good one, maybee.
Interested? I'll give you more info upon request.
As for the nitrite to nitro rearangement - it pretty much sucks, i'm speaking both from SWIM's personal experience AND from the theory - it gives not more than 20% (in theory) yields - practically much less, and -
did you ever actualy think of what kind of apparatus one will have to construct for doing this? I've tried to make one, and it's actually easy with some ingenuity , but IMHO not quite worth the effort
.
I strongly believe that ethylsulfate is the future, although SWIM hasn't checked it yet - has to spend all his money for college tuition
BTW - amph/meth are
very addictive, one really shouldn't make them at large scale - for his own goodness's sake. Believe me, it is
the wisdom.
Antoncho