Looking for advice regarding Amphetamine synthesis using Cinnamaldehyde

[SaltedLead]

Hi,

I'm a bit new to this forum and considering attempting a synthesis based on a reddit post detailing the creating of racemic amphetamine starting from cinnamaldehyde.
The post was quite vague and only detailed a rough outline of the procedure so I've tried my best to fill in the blanks.

The synthesis goes as follows.

100ml of cinnamaldehyde is added to 100ml of benzyl alcohol to produce cinnamyl alcohol.
The cinnamyl alcohol is added to ammonia in a 1:1 ratio to create cinnamyl amine.
This is again added to benzyl alcohol 1:1 to make phenylpropylamine which is then hydrogenated using a hydrogen gas supply to produce dl-phenylisopropylamine AKA amphetamine.
Followed by recrystallization.

I haven't dabbled in amphetamine synthesis before so any advice would be appreciated especially if someone has done this synthesis before.

 

[OrgUnikum]

None of this makes any sense

 

[Melv99]

She’s probably referring to Cyprinal (Methyl-cinnamaldehyde)? Not sure how but I suppose it can and has been done.

 

[OrgUnikum]

No, Cyprinal, whats alpha-methyl cinnamaldehyde can undergo a Bayer Villinger oxidation to form P2P enol-ester which hydrolyses readily to P2P. It is usually done with Oxone, but Caros acid and peracids work too. Good for smaller, maybe medium batches but unsuited for anything bigger for the large solvent volumes needed and it also takes quite some time, plus there is a side reaction where the enol ester is further oxidized to an epoxide and so there will be always a mixture of products which has to be addressed in the workup.