some ideas on otc benzene and a few q's on amalgum

[quantum]

well I have been doing more reserch on demethylation
of toluene to benzene and I now strongly belive that
the CaO will not work (yes I have been told this on the hive)
I belive that if doing a decarbox on benzoic acid
you will leave behind a ketal group where your origonal
methyl group was.

so what can you do with benzene with a ketal group on it.
well I belive you can put it through a Zinc/Hg amalgum
with HCl hopfully adding H to the ketal making it into
OH then ripping it off to form a methylene group on the carbon
that was linked to the ketal group

well some Q's now.

benzene doesnt realy have any methylene groups.
as far as I know it has a wierd hydrogen sharing system
going. where instead of having H all over it it has half
as much and rotates the hydrogen around the outside of the
ring.

well if we dont realy have methylene's in benzene will the
zinc amalgum fuck up the resonance of the ring.

if it does am I likly to see a compound with a higher boiling
point than benzene or very simular.

Al/Hg gives off H and so does Mg/Hg can I use these instead
of zinc.


is it possible to use Zinc and magnesium for amalgums
with nitro and methylamine reductive aminations.

are there any other metals that will amalgumate like these
three?

anyway thanx again guys

[Rhodium]

I belive that if doing a decarbox on benzoic acid you will leave behind a ketal group where your origonal methyl group was.

Decarboxylating benzoic acid will give you benzene directly. No ketal. However, benzoic acid has no methyl groups to begin with, so I don't know if you really understand what you are asking...