The Vespiary

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.

Have you checked out this synth on Rhodium's site?

https://www.thevespiary.org/rhodium/Rhodium/chemistry/chloralhydrate.html (https://www.thevespiary.org/rhodium/Rhodium/chemistry/chloralhydrate.html)

Might help.

i did see that, but it wasn't really what i wanted, it was brand specific as opposed to chemical specific, and it really didn't give much indication of the chemistry going on.

I was trying to convert the brand specific proportions to an exact mole ingredient and fell short without further knowledge of the products involved, and little enthusiasm to reasearch.

Ethanol + Chlorine -> Chloral

Patent US2443183 (http://l2.espacenet.com/dips/viewer?PN=US2443183&CY=gb&LG=en&DB=EPD)

Patent US2478152 (http://l2.espacenet.com/dips/viewer?PN=US2478152&CY=gb&LG=en&DB=EPD)

Ethanal + Chlorine -> Chloral

Patent GB644914 (http://l2.espacenet.com/dips/viewer?PN=GB644914&CY=gb&LG=en&DB=EPD)

Patent DE874303 (http://l2.espacenet.com/dips/viewer?PN=DE874303&CY=gb&LG=en&DB=EPD)

Chlorine gas is prepared by acidification of sodium or calcium hypochlorite or KMnO4 oxidation of HCl, see my page for details.