I made some shit, so you don't have to...

[The_Grand_Duel]

Hello dear associates, today I want to show you my first (Successful?) experiment on the synthesis of your favorite 4-methylpropiophenone.
After a long and thorough preparation, watching a ton of shit on YouTube, and gathering everything I needed, I finally got down to business.

Of course, since we are going to do 4MP, then our right way is to acyllation of toluene, and our faithful friends are Charles Friedel and James Craftst, after whom this reaction was named, which we will deal with!

Reagents:
anh. ALCL3 : 42g
Propionylchloride: 31ml
Toluene : 22.8g
DCM(total): 100ml
HCL: 20 ml
ICE: ~250g

The Synthesis:
40 ml of DCM were added to a 500 ml flask in an ice bath, 42 grams of ALCL3 were added there, after a short stirring during which most of the ALCL3 did not dissolve, PropionyleChloride was added drop by drop within 15 minutes. After all the PropionyleChloride was added, the ALCL3 dissolved completely. Further, through the additional funnel, toluene was poured drop by drop, diluted in 30 ml of DCM for 30 minutes, during the addition, gaseous HCL was actively released, which was excreted through the tube into a jar with a soda solution, the jar heated up during this, and the soda sizzled SHHSHSHSSH! After the toluene was added, the flask was removed from the ice bath and stirred at room temperature for 30 minutes.

It turned out to be about 120 ml of dark red slurry. Next, 20 ml of HCL 37% was added to a container with 250 grams of ice, after which the entire contents of the flask were gradually poured onto acidic ice with the release of great heat and gaseous HCL, then after mixing, the layers were separated, the organic layer was washed 2 times with water and 2 times with soda dissolve, again the layers were separated and dried over anhydrous MGSO4 and at the output we have a dark green liquid with a floral-nutty aroma, which still contains DCM. Then, at 40 degrees, the DCM was evaporated and reassembled into the bottle, and we already have a black-red slurry that boils > 240 C, corrodes foam, smells strange (like flowers... and sour cheese) when heated, it smokes a lot in the air and hits the nose, if you try to set it on fire, it burns.

Total:
After distillation of DCM, 37 ml of Black-Liquid remained and I am not sure if this is what I was hoping to get, but there is no way to distill it at 239 degrees C, so I have a big question for you: Is it possible to proceed to the next stage - bromination/iodization using a raw, dirty product ???

 

[loadingST]

Absolutly not, you shoud have just reacted your toulene with alcl3 in ice bath then add the acyl chloride, for distiling this ketone you have to use vacum or steam destilation.

 

[The_Grand_Duel]

Can I use simple distillation? When steam distilled, this ketone can explode, this is due to its sharp exothermic reaction with water, as in the ChemPlayer video. And another question: if I heated raw 4m to a temperature of 239 degrees and above during simple distillation in the hope of evaporating 4mp, could it collapse? And how long can it be stored raw?

In one video, I saw it distilled using simple distillation, without vacuum and water

 

[loadingST]

No it cant explode, and i havent time to watch it now, but a vacum pump is must distiling auch high boiling ketones, maybe if you use an two neck flask, and the vapors go through the side neck to the condenser it have higher chances to disttil without vacum and you have so small amaunt, if you have biger amaunt just heat it a lot under its boiling point and it will distill and without vacum it might take time but yyeah its possible.

 

[The_Grand_Duel]

Thank you very much! As I will see, you have a good experience in this and I am grateful to you for sharing it. As far as I understand, steam distillation implies that the ketone must be poured with water and then heated to the boiling point of water (?). And regarding your first answer in the thread, yes, I really did not succeed with the iodization of dirty ketone, the sediment in isopropyl alcohol did not appear after the process, even after evaporation...

I also think that the reason for the failure is that the product is very dirty, since the toluene was isolated from a dissolver bought in a hardware store by diluting it with water and drying it over MgSO4, there could still be the butyl acetate that was in the dissolver. These impurities, as I understand it, interfere with the process of acylation of toluene?

 

[loadingST]

Look you have succeded, i understanded only by the strong aroma smell you described, i have distiled this ketone and know how smelly is distiling it, you havent succeded cuz you dont have pure substance and cant calculate the other reagents for the iodization its simple and i dont know which route did you used. Just obtain pure toulene, do a bigger batch, get one aspirator pump and qith the small vacum it provides the ketone distils very easy.
And steam destilation is a one flask with your high boiling ketone with boiling chips, with two necks conected to another flask with steam from boiling water, and the ketone ia heated to its boiling point and when steam goes trough it it helps to transfer the heavy molecule of the ketone to the condenser.