Now I tried searching and found only mentions that ethylenediamine potentially could be used as an alternative but realistically couldn'y any "small" carbon chain with an amino group attached be used??
Sorry I forgot why swim would want to know... it is an alternative as a Li or K or Na solvant in a birch reduction... please help.. because it seems that mechanically it should work from at least my knowlegde level... but also the carbon chian might screw with the free-electron thingy.... meh.. help pleace
Methylamine is watched and a gas, dimethylamine is gaseous too and kind of suspicious (drugs and WMD uses), diethylamine is out of the question for most of us too for the same reasons, amines with different alkyl radicals are uncommon and expensive, and dipropylamine will probably not work anymore (and still is kind of questionable).
Dunno if tri(m)ethylamine would work, probably not.
Would methylethylamine work? It is kind of expensive and uncommon, but not too much of either.
Oxygen69
I have done a lot of research into the Birch reaction and if you were to just read the old postings on here from me (jim or CHEM_GUY) u would know that i have a general outline for solvents.
Secondary amines do not work very well as Birch solvents. I think that dimethylamine works but only sort of...
Try doing some research and reading the existing notes