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https://www.thevespiary.org/rhodium/Rhodium/chemistry/nitrostyrene.reduction.alhg.html

Maybee it is too easy?

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It's pretty easy alright. The workup isn't even that bad - the secret is in using the isopropyl alcohol which will carry your product out of the sludge once it becomes saturated enough with ions.

Be careful though - Don't go adding all the Al at once like some suggest in there, no matter how potent you think your condensor really is... Recently scrubbed Al/Hg SHIT off the ceiling...

-SpicyBrown

Erny: it is not too easy, but too poisonous. (I'm still wondering why you all like Hg that much: it is an insidious, deadly poison which accumulates in your body and makes you slowly become insane after months - and I started the thread with the words "I was trying to remember all routes from a nitropropene to an amphetamine that explicitly don't use mercury, metal hydrides, pressurized hydrogen and/or other hazardous/toxic reagents", so Al/Hg doesn't belong here..)

In case you still want tu use mercury amalgam for reducing: how about adding a bent drying tube on top of your condensor? You could direct possible spillovers into a plastic dish (instead of your ceiling). Think it is easier to dispose off mercury sludge this way...

A

Well, nitropropenes can be reduced to ketones via different routes, which easily form oximes (see picture in 1st post). These can also be reduced using elemental sodium/alcohol (see rhods page). (nice advantage: oxime reductions result usually in more potent product, as the syn/anti ratio of the intermediate oxime is 9:1 or something like that. In most cases, this means a more potent phenylisopropylamine - not with 3,4-methylenedioxy compounds, but in most other cases)

Greetz A

I'm still wondering why you all like Hg that much: it is an insidious, deadly poison which accumulates in your body and makes you slowly become insane after months

You don't have to eat it...

Take the necessary precautions, and dispose of your waste properly.

In case you still want tu use mercury amalgam for reducing: how about adding a bent drying tube on top of your condensor?

They are Russians, not pussies, these guys are real chemists. They take a kitchen jar and shake it so violently that the bottom falls off, but hey - they still reduce nitropropene to amine, so save your advices.

> I'm still wondering why you all like Hg that much

1) the name
2) the only liquid metal at RT (alright, gallium is cool too)
3) perfectly OTC (hint: mercury switch)
4) a flask full of mercury is surprisingly heavy
5) salts are surprsingly heavy too
6) salts have all kinds of colors
7) gives funny bubbles when spilt
scares the shit out of chemophobics
9) unique chemistry (amalgams/overvoltage)
last but not least:
10) it just works.

To Vitus: Indeed, you don't have to eat it, inhaling Hg vapors over extended time periods is very unhealthy as well! And disposing properly of something covering your laboratory ceiling? Have fun with that - without me...

To Capn_America: well, where I live, we usually make jokes about "the russian method" and so on whenever something involves old-fashioned BIG-scale equipment, huge amounts of tech-grade solvents, heating pressurized pipe bombs, reacting huge amounts of toxic/hazardous compounds without proper safety precautions etc. - so to say whenever something DANGEROUS is attempted at big scale, but without good equipment/good resources (which surely is related to the bad, bad infrastructure in russia, forcing the poor, but indeed often ingenious chemists to use outdated, tedious procedures rather than the state-of-the-art high-tech thingys they surely would like to do instead).
But since I don't live in russia: no mercury for me please - at least not in this thread *lol*...

To Hypo: Wait, lemme guess: H₂S is another favorite chemical for you, as it stinks, is a gas, forms funny coloured sulfides... - I'm lucky I don't have to work in your lab!

(two reasons against using Hg: 1. It's toxic 2. Other non-toxic chemicals do the same job better - now you again!)


C'mon guys, I don't question your credibility or anything else by not mentioning your preferred reducing agent - it is just that I personally dislike Hg and therefore I decided time ago to start a thread dealing with other, not-so-dangerous reagents suitable for arriving at subst. amphs - so why this "Mercury over all"-movement?  

Greetz A

well, where I live, we usually make jokes about "the russian method" and so on whenever something involves old-fashioned BIG-scale equipment, huge amounts of tech-grade solvents, heating pressurized pipe bombs, reacting huge amounts of toxic/hazardous compounds without proper safety precautions etc. - so to say whenever something DANGEROUS is attempted at big scale, but without good equipment/good resources (which surely is related to the bad, bad infrastructure in russia, forcing the poor, but indeed often ingenious chemists to use outdated, tedious procedures rather than the state-of-the-art high-tech thingys they surely would like to do instead).
But since I don't live in russia: no mercury for me please - at least not in this thread *lol*...

You really like to talk a lot. What does the state-of-the-art equipment has to do with chemistry? I suggest you to read some old chemistry books;

http://bcis.pacificu.edu/~polverone/

. Too bad the soul of the organic chemistry is slowly dying with the introduction of these computerized robots where you push buttons. Back to the topic, the most simple way for a basement shaman to reduce a nitropropene to amine in one good-yielding step is by using the kvicksilver aluminium amalgam. I would vote for it any day. Once you've obtained couple of grams of Hg (II) salt, you never again have to worry about reductions. It simply lasts forever. How about that? Only downside is Al(OH)3.

> two reasons against using Hg: 1. It's toxic 2. Other non-toxic chemicals do
> the same job better - now you again!

1) mercury isn't dangerous when handled correctly (where i live we
store chemicals in closed flasks) and every chemist should be able
of handling 100mg of HgCl2 without poisoning himself/others
2) you failed to provide any alternative which matches mercury in
OTCness/easiness:
Zn: not as OTC/from what i've heard equally annoying workup
Pd/C: not nearly as OTC/much harder to make than HgCl2
NaBH2: not nearly as OTC/much harder to make than HgCl2

sure, if someone had free access to chemicals, then nobody would use Al/Hg
reductions (not because of it's toxicity but rather because of the annoying workup),
but the interesting thing about clandestine chemistry is that people have other
constraints like OTCness.

why i like mercury

hypo, you forgot to mention it is a very useful substance to eliminate idiots from our Planet.

I see, mercury has its place in your chemical education, you love it, can't get other reducing agents, are simply charmed by the alchimist attitude arising from Al/Hg containing bubbling glass bulbs with huge condensers - might I again mention for my defense that I started this thread with the intention of simply gaining a quick overview of reduction methods besides mercury/"kvicksilver" (and other dangerous..)? That it is part of my chemical education to avoid the use of toxic compounds wherever possible (not only because of health concerns - but environmental/ecological reasons too)? And finally, that the leuckart (or dithionite reduction of P2Ps to their oximes and then to amines with Zn/NH4Cl) are at least as OTC and "old-fashioned" (keeping the spirit of oldschool organic chemistry alive, although partly adapted from newer scient. papers) as the Hg mess you seem to celebrate with joy/pride?  

(don't take it personally, just think about the fishes - or about all the money you have to spend when regularly disposing of Hg waste. Not that I have never touched mercury - I have some 100g of HgCl2 lying around - but it is simply not necessary to dissolve tiny amounts of a deadly poisonous (even if handled correctly!) substance in huge amounts of liquid again and again)

A

That it is part of my chemical education to avoid the use of toxic compounds wherever possible (not only because of health concerns - but environmental/ecological reasons too)?

Everything is toxic. How often do I have to paraphrase Paracelsus...

I don't think that "a bit of poison now and then" matches with the toxic properties of mercury..

many things are toxic in larger amounts (borohydride for example) - mercury is very toxic even in trace amounts, it accumulates in your body, no matter how small the amount you ingest/inhale is, and pure mercury is the worsest of all: spillages require thorough decontamination of affected areas as it splatters everywhere, forming the nice little droplets hypo loves so much...

(have fun with it! You will surely remember me if you have to wipe up said mess - and it will happen sooner or later to everybee of you)

Hypo: "where I live.." - I dunno where you come from, but most contries consider mercury as poisonous, whereas zinc is only considered "irritating" (if anything at all), and so does mine. Here obtaining zinc granules, powder etc. is NO problem, but even the mercury switches contain very tiny Hg amounts (if any - gallium/indium is used more often nowadays as it is not as toxic as mercury, and same thing with thermometers...). But if you like, just use Hg amalgam as you are used to. I'm not trying to convince anyone - only to justify why I decided to exclude your favourite heavy metal from my reducing agent overview..

A

Dear Captain "shaman" America: I think if I meant high-tech chemical laboratory eqipment, you can say that high-tech is well related to chemistry. And I meant chemistry related equipment. (BTW I know several old organic chemistry textbooks)

Are you proud about the poor infrastructure russia has to offer? Or proud about being able to shake a kitchen jar until it explodes?  

Or did you simply want to show the friendliness of a russian chemist when telling me to keep my advice for me??
(do you want to encourage others to stop posting useful tips? then go ahead.. I don't remember who asked YOU about your opinion??)

 A  

Krause: Chem. Ztg. 40, 810, (1916)

Post 474887

(lugh: "Requested Article", Chemistry Discourse)
This might answer some questions and show better ways. With iron filings and HCl to amphetamine directly from the nitrocompound. In almost quantitative yields.

And please do us the favor and stop this mercury hysteria. CHEMOPANIC! If you dont like it, dont use it but dont start a crusade.
btw. H2S, Cl2 and Hg are very useful (and chloroacetone, BzCl, benzene, chloroform ....) and no big deal when basic lab-safety is applied.

Stop telling whats allowed and whats not - there is to many forbidden already on this world and actually we all are here at the-hive because we dont listen when somebody says "nono!"  

ORG

what reaction are you talking about?

> are simply charmed by the alchimist attitude arising from Al/Hg
> containing bubbling glass bulbs with huge condensers

you can do up to 100g batches without problems in standard glassware.
just because you messed up one certain Al/Hg doesn't mean that all suck.

> And finally, that the leuckart (or dithionite reduction of P2Ps to
> their oximes and then to amines with Zn/NH4Cl) are at least as OTC

err... no. formic acid or dithionite are not as OTC as mercury switches.

> but even the mercury switches contain very tiny Hg amounts

hogwash.
the big mercury switches (about $10) contain 15-20g mercury. that should
last a lifetime for a smallscale cook. as opposed to Zn, the Hg is not
the reducer.

> I'm not trying to convince anyone

doesn't sound that way.

ps: i don't like H2S, but sulfur is one of my favorite elements, that's true.
very rich chemistry   . and it's cool for neutralising mercury spills too.

, and pure mercury is the worsest of all:


Then, maybe you shouldn't do chemistry.  If you can't stand the heat, don't get even close to the kitchen.

OK there we go, I declare this the official MERCURY-THREAD!  

Come on, you are invited to post! (obviously you need some place to talk about Hg..)

BTW I did in no way try to tell anyone what to do or not, did I?? Nor am I a "chemopanic" - just not "chemophile"!!

(OK some nasty compounds are pretty useful, and even Hg might be: but WHY DO YOU GUYS WANT TO DISCUSS THIS REDUCING AGENT IN THIS THREAD??)    

Anyway, go ahead: I think I expressed clearly enough what I think about your BELOVED mercury and therefore I think I won't participate any longer in this discussion..  

Greetz A

Did I mention how FUNNY it is being flamed for saying "mercury amalgam reductions don't belong here" in a thread starting with the words

I have just tried to remember all possibilities for going from a nitropropene to an aminopropane that explicitly don't use mercury amalgams, lithium aluminium hydride, pressurized hydrogen or other hazardous reagents.

 - and being further flamed for saying "mercury is toxic"...

but that's OK. I have bad days too.

(Organikum: let me know if you happen to successfully reduce P2NP to amphetamine with iron filings/HCl - I'm looking forward to read about this revolutionary, simple, totally unknown method - noone ever heard of it during the last >80 years, hm?..)

I don't want to see any more comments from either side of the camp regarding their opinions on either mercury or their rhetoric opponents - consider anything in that direction as a request for the thread to be closed.