As promised, how to make propionic acid from methyl ethyl ketone and bleach. We're essentially reprocessing the haloform reaction. Personally i think this method is pretty crappy, so much work and and waste for such a tiny amount of product. I'll see if i can find a better method. On the plus side, a really crappy method makes for a nice long and comprehensive video :) Anyway, Merry Christmas, happy new year and whatever else you celebrate. I should have at least one more video in December before i too take a break for the holidays.
YOU are a legend. I can appreciate your end goal and you do a great job at making this so achievable by anyone with some basic Chemistry knowledge and skills!
I really love all the ideas of solving different problems on the way to make propionic acid. Reminds my of my days back then in the lab. I used propionic acid as a solvent to make porphyrin (to be more precisely TTP), which I then used as a ligand. Keep up the nice work! :)
I will be looking forward to seeing your pyrimethamine synthesis video. To see one of the most important drugs ever made synthesized using household items is beyond amazing.
Ya know, I wish I could do pool work under these conditions, but when we work with acids, chlorine, bromine, etc. we usually wear nothing, or a simple hospital mouth cover. I learned my lesson. While give a pool a scrubbing with some weak muriatic acid, my helper forgot to take the chlorine out of the skimmer. When I cleaned the skimmer, well, let's just say that the pool became a gas chamber. It wasn't terrible, because it was weak acid from Walmart, but if we would have used warehouse acid, we would have had to evacuate the LSU (Louisiana state university) entire campus. At midday. It. Was. Painful.
Dilute propionic acid solution is excellent to sterilize jars for home made jam or pickled anything. It's also perfect to sterilize bins for growing mushrooms and the like.
Would ot be possible to make propionic acid from acetone by this route?: -mix excess acetone water and sodium hydroxide -add bleach dropwise, slowly -separate propionic acid by this method? Now, it may seem, that this is exactly what NR did, but with acetone instead of MEK. But here we add bleach very slowly. There is never enough bleach to react with acetone fully, and there are nearly no polychlorinated acetones in the mix. Chloroacetone undergoes Favorskii rearrangement in basic conditions and rearranges into propionic acid. Woyld that work?
Why the fuck do I watch every one of these as if I know anything at all about chemistry? I just know there's a cheeky bastard in my subconscious with a monocle saying, "Oh yes indubitably sir, but I would have used the keystone reaction to double my propablahblahblah and thereby save the world."
good video :-) will there ever be a compilation of organic name reactions and how to perform them? I did a birch reduction earlier this month (actually at room temperature with npropylamine instead of liquid ammonia) and it was so beautiful that I can imagine it would be a good video for this channel. :-) greetings from germany!
Would it be possible to buy the cheap(ish) food preservative Calcium Propionate and add sulphuric acid, isolate with distillation/drying like you did to get Calcium Sulphate and Propionic Acid? This would skip all of the hazardous gases in the beginning steps?
After all the work you've put into this project so far; I'll be really disappointed for you if it doesn't work out. So best of luck with that. Oh yeah, and merry Krampus day and stuff!
I made a video on the haloform reaction using elemental iodine instead of chlorine (bleach). Do you think this method would be more efficient to produce the carboxylate salt? It seems forming a precipitate (iodoform) would be favorable to chloroform. Also no worries of phosgene production.
+NurdRage, Pyrimethamine? Freaking awesome. I was really upset when I heard the news about the price scalping. Would this be activism through chemistry?
Why is 'propionate' the IUPAC spelling, and not 'propanoate', given the root is 'propan-', and all other straight chain carboxylic acid salts follow the '-oate' convention? 'Propionate' just feels like a misnomer to me.
'Propanoate' is definitely what I learned all the way through school, and it seems a little out of character for IUPAC to deviate from a naming convention like that. The conjugate base of butanoic acid is definitely 'butanoate', not 'butionate', and likewise with ethanoic acid.
+Freeze Dried Girolles It's a descriptive name for propanoic acid, just as acetic acid and butyric acid are. You're right about propanoate being the proper IUPAC name, but both are acceptable :)
sir, i'm from indonesia. I am very impressed with your explanation and description of the hypothesis. I have a request to process Trichlorocynuric acid or TCCA but do not use chlorine gas. what do you think
I left another lengthy comment, but here’s my two cents, I think I’ve figured out a much faster and effective method of doing this: Sodium propionate has a solubility of 1g/ 24 mL of ethanol. Sodium chloride only has a solubility of 0.65g/ L. Dry the residue directly after the haloform reaction to get a crust of sodium chloride and sodium propionate, extract with ethanol. This should give almost pure sodium propionate with minimal sodium chloride contamination. Then just acidify and distill. The amount of HCL off gassing should be negligible
Really sucks that I can't find methyl ethyl ketone anywhere now (I live in Arizona, but I think its hard to find in any store now). The MEK substitute is mostly pure ethyl acetate, which is very useful in its own right, but I still wish I could get some MEK as easy as it use to be (It can be purchased online, but it's like $50+ for just 1 gal).
+NurdRage If I buy stuff from the alchemy lab supply online store, and I pay in USD does it charge me the Canadian $ price or would it cost me the american $ price?
May I make a suggestion to anyone intending to carry this reaction out: use an excess of hypochlorite to prevent an azeotrope of MEK with chloroform. Before the addition of HCl, the lower chloroform layer formed as a side product of this reaction can be separated and isolated. That way, byproducts need not be wasted.
How will you know if you've successfully made the drug? Would be cool to know how the analysis on the final product is done. Good luck and happy holidays!
Quite curious if solid/gel cleaning agents would be a more reliable starting material than aqueous bleach solutions, or if the anti-caking materials in solid and gel cleaning products hinder things too much?
If certain chemicals are mixed together, it could create a powerful explosion. Has anyone considered making an engine that could replace the internal combustion engine that uses chemical that cause small explosions when mixed? Also, could such an engine be cheaper to run than a gasoline engine?
Using a rotary evaporator to remove water? riiiiight....But props on making guanidine, I'm looking forward to that video as I've worked with it before.
NurdRage, did you play a lot of chess at some point in your life? Noticed, in a few videos, that he casually uses "blundered" and some other sayings a lot; these phrases are common in chess, and very rare elsewhere.
just a quick question I am running a synthesis of heptanol from heptene but I can't seem to get it to work do you know the temp I need to be running it at or something I'm doing wrong, it works on paper but not in my lab any ideas ?
I have cheaply available sodium bisulfate, can I use this on the initial sodium propionate? It is not easy to liberate HCl with it as it's a much weaker acid.
+Firstname Surname Well if he really is going to do that, I'd be glad to wait and see the results. Sounds like a really interesting thing to see and I hope that sometime in the future Nurdrage or some other youtube chemist does it :)
+Mark Rose Still have a few more precursors to go, cyanide, guanidine, trimethyl orthoformate, and chlorine. Then I need to do the actual synthesis which is five steps. So we're looking at least two more months of videos.
+NurdRage Thanks in advance for the in-depth view at the process. Even though most of us will never actually try this, it's extremely fun to watch you do it.
Hobby Chemists (or Nurd but it won't be worth your time)! I'm looking for a way to get some acetic anhydride. I want to make isopropyl acetate, which is said to smell fruity. I have 25% concentrated vinegar, and very little glassware. I could probably just buy it, but I'd like to attempt making it first. Any ideas? Thank you :)
Alkaline earth metals are difficult to isolate. Heating the calcium salt to a very high temperature will create Calcium Oxide which can be catalytically reduced/hydrogenated to isolate calcium. This is not efficient or effective however.
Nice work like all your work, but this is the video crowded with so much side information that I have a real difficulty to understand how to make the actual propionic acid.... I just was lost in the way even with a pencyl and paper in front...
+NurdRage make a video on how to make perchloric acid. It to me seems like a very "interesting" substance but, all videos and research I have done online was rubbish. If you could get back to me it would be much abliged.
hey,nurdrage show us your lab.i like to see it .answer my question. pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease.i think you show your laboratory for me and your RUclips friends .and merry Christmas to you
Man. It's kind of funny; I have basically no understanding of what you're saying here, but each of your videos thus far has been a... Well, what's like a page-turner for a video? Riveting.
As promised, how to make propionic acid from methyl ethyl ketone and bleach. We're essentially reprocessing the haloform reaction.
Personally i think this method is pretty crappy, so much work and and waste for such a tiny amount of product. I'll see if i can find a better method. On the plus side, a really crappy method makes for a nice long and comprehensive video :)
Anyway, Merry Christmas, happy new year and whatever else you celebrate. I should have at least one more video in December before i too take a break for the holidays.
+NurdRage yolo swag
+NurdRage ye swag
+NurdRage propanaldehyde oxidation?
+Omar Rodríguez If there is a domestically available source then let me know! :)
+NurdRage Why not just use permanganate in an alkaline solution? n-propanol and permanganate should be fairly easy to obtain.
YOU are a legend. I can appreciate your end goal and you do a great job at making this so achievable by anyone with some basic Chemistry knowledge and skills!
you are one of very few who perfectly explains every aspect...thank you
I'm really enjoying this series. It would be awesome if you released a long video with more detail showing all of the steps from start to finish.
+Chris Roller Once i have all the pieces ready i'll do just that!
+NurdRage Also, I can't afford a subscription, but if you're in or happen to visit Vancouver, let me buy you a beer. Your channel is awesome.
I really love all the ideas of solving different problems on the way to make propionic acid. Reminds my of my days back then in the lab. I used propionic acid as a solvent to make porphyrin (to be more precisely TTP), which I then used as a ligand. Keep up the nice work! :)
I don't often press the like button on any youtube videos but your content is really really good.
I will be looking forward to seeing your pyrimethamine synthesis video. To see one of the most important drugs ever made synthesized using household items is beyond amazing.
It's an orphan drug that only a few dozen people in North America use. How is it "one of the most important drugs ever created"?
Bleach, MEK, and sulfuric acid? I bet it smells _glorious_ in there! :)
I don't really know or like anything about chemistry or physics yet I love your videos ..
Ya know, I wish I could do pool work under these conditions, but when we work with acids, chlorine, bromine, etc. we usually wear nothing, or a simple hospital mouth cover. I learned my lesson. While give a pool a scrubbing with some weak muriatic acid, my helper forgot to take the chlorine out of the skimmer. When I cleaned the skimmer, well, let's just say that the pool became a gas chamber. It wasn't terrible, because it was weak acid from Walmart, but if we would have used warehouse acid, we would have had to evacuate the LSU (Louisiana state university) entire campus. At midday. It. Was. Painful.
Dilute propionic acid solution is excellent to sterilize jars for home made jam or pickled anything. It's also perfect to sterilize bins for growing mushrooms and the like.
Would ot be possible to make propionic acid from acetone by this route?:
-mix excess acetone water and sodium hydroxide
-add bleach dropwise, slowly
-separate propionic acid by this method?
Now, it may seem, that this is exactly what NR did, but with acetone instead of MEK. But here we add bleach very slowly. There is never enough bleach to react with acetone fully, and there are nearly no polychlorinated acetones in the mix. Chloroacetone undergoes Favorskii rearrangement in basic conditions and rearranges into propionic acid. Woyld that work?
Why the fuck do I watch every one of these as if I know anything at all about chemistry? I just know there's a cheeky bastard in my subconscious with a monocle saying, "Oh yes indubitably sir, but I would have used the keystone reaction to double my propablahblahblah and thereby save the world."
Hey NurdRage, love the videos. Always interesting. Cheers from London, On.
good video :-)
will there ever be a compilation of organic name reactions and how to perform them? I did a birch reduction earlier this month (actually at room temperature with npropylamine instead of liquid ammonia) and it was so beautiful that I can imagine it would be a good video for this channel. :-)
greetings from germany!
even though I don't know most of this, it's still very interesting to watch :)
Would it be possible to buy the cheap(ish) food preservative Calcium Propionate and add sulphuric acid, isolate with distillation/drying like you did to get Calcium Sulphate and Propionic Acid? This would skip all of the hazardous gases in the beginning steps?
Good stuff man. Keep em coming.
How about a video about Fluoroantimonic acid?
After all the work you've put into this project so far; I'll be really disappointed for you if it doesn't work out. So best of luck with that.
Oh yeah, and merry Krampus day and stuff!
That's great as your previous videos
Great video! Even though it has been a long road and your yield was low, it's still a satisfying feeling when you get the product, right?
5:25 is that salt sodium cloride?
I made a video on the haloform reaction using elemental iodine instead of chlorine (bleach). Do you think this method would be more efficient to produce the carboxylate salt? It seems forming a precipitate (iodoform) would be favorable to chloroform. Also no worries of phosgene production.
+NurdRage, Pyrimethamine? Freaking awesome. I was really upset when I heard the news about the price scalping. Would this be activism through chemistry?
When I first saw the title of this video, I had half a heartache because I thought it said "How to make Phloroantemonic acid" 😂
Why is 'propionate' the IUPAC spelling, and not 'propanoate', given the root is 'propan-', and all other straight chain carboxylic acid salts follow the '-oate' convention? 'Propionate' just feels like a misnomer to me.
yeah. shouldnt it be propanoate?
'Propanoate' is definitely what I learned all the way through school, and it seems a little out of character for IUPAC to deviate from a naming convention like that. The conjugate base of butanoic acid is definitely 'butanoate', not 'butionate', and likewise with ethanoic acid.
+Freeze Dried Girolles It's a descriptive name for propanoic acid, just as acetic acid and butyric acid are. You're right about propanoate being the proper IUPAC name, but both are acceptable :)
According to wiki, propanoic acid is the preferred IUPAC name.
Thank you once again!
sodium bicarbonate is baking soda right
It took me three years to notice he spelled nerd with an U.
Could this be used for electrical conductivity
could you make acetic acid the same way, if you use acetone?
Yes, I'll be posting a video in about 2 weeks explaining the process in detail, if you're interested.
What do you do with the waste products?
Ah i love watching your videos
Can you make a video on how to make propenoic acid/acrylic acid? There are no videos on RUclips that explain a process that works properly.
Why do not use the dean stark with toluene as cosolvent
I have a question.If I use ethanol instead of 2-butanone, can I get methanoic acid?
I don't know what just happened but I like it
sir, i'm from indonesia. I am very impressed with your explanation and description of the hypothesis. I have a request to process Trichlorocynuric acid or TCCA but do not use chlorine gas. what do you think
I love this channel.. very informative
The bleach is sodium hypochlorite, water and salt? Wouldn't the label include hypochlorous acid?
+EJConrad Not according to regulations. They only have to put in the intended\initial ingredients.
ty!
I left another lengthy comment, but here’s my two cents, I think I’ve figured out a much faster and effective method of doing this:
Sodium propionate has a solubility of 1g/ 24 mL of ethanol. Sodium chloride only has a solubility of 0.65g/ L. Dry the residue directly after the haloform reaction to get a crust of sodium chloride and sodium propionate, extract with ethanol. This should give almost pure sodium propionate with minimal sodium chloride contamination. Then just acidify and distill. The amount of HCL off gassing should be negligible
Since it's a carboxylic acid like acetic acid, could you put a dilute solution of it on chips like with vinegar?
It would be fun if you made a video about esters!
Really good video
Can you make video how to make Lysergic acid diethylamide?
+Krists Zeidlers Oh man, I wanna see that!
+Krists Zeidlers No
+Justin Bell what's that
+Krists Zeidlers well he did, but then his hands melted and he was attacked by a purple giraffe.
+shehan soysa its LSD
Really sucks that I can't find methyl ethyl ketone anywhere now (I live in Arizona, but I think its hard to find in any store now). The MEK substitute is mostly pure ethyl acetate, which is very useful in its own right, but I still wish I could get some MEK as easy as it use to be (It can be purchased online, but it's like $50+ for just 1 gal).
Do you not sell calcium propionate as a food additive?
+NurdRage If I buy stuff from the alchemy lab supply online store, and I pay in USD does it charge me the Canadian $ price or would it cost me the american $ price?
+AmericanFishDude Email them and ask them. I don't work for them.
NurdRage Ok i will do that then thank you!
May I make a suggestion to anyone intending to carry this reaction out: use an excess of hypochlorite to prevent an azeotrope of MEK with chloroform. Before the addition of HCl, the lower chloroform layer formed as a side product of this reaction can be separated and isolated. That way, byproducts need not be wasted.
How will you know if you've successfully made the drug? Would be cool to know how the analysis on the final product is done. Good luck and happy holidays!
+joshcryer Via friends with access to an NMR.
is the end product you made propionic anyhydride?
Quite curious if solid/gel cleaning agents would be a more reliable starting material than aqueous bleach solutions, or if the anti-caking materials in solid and gel cleaning products hinder things too much?
I wonder what would happen if we add hydrogen peroxide to the mixture before HCl produce O2 & NaCl?
Friend , is there any way to make butyl alcohol ( butanol ) ? As it has become a small chain alcohol in a larger ?
If certain chemicals are mixed together, it could create a powerful explosion. Has anyone considered making an engine that could replace the internal combustion engine that uses chemical that cause small explosions when mixed? Also, could such an engine be cheaper to run than a gasoline engine?
Using a rotary evaporator to remove water? riiiiight....But props on making guanidine, I'm looking forward to that video as I've worked with it before.
Some experiments would be nice to see
NurdRage, did you play a lot of chess at some point in your life? Noticed, in a few videos, that he casually uses "blundered" and some other sayings a lot; these phrases are common in chess, and very rare elsewhere.
Could you make a video about making Nitric acid with the Catalytic Oxidation of ammonia? (Ostwald process)
just a quick question I am running a synthesis of heptanol from heptene but I can't seem to get it to work do you know the temp I need to be running it at or something I'm doing wrong, it works on paper but not in my lab any ideas ?
I have cheaply available sodium bisulfate, can I use this on the initial sodium propionate? It is not easy to liberate HCl with it as it's a much weaker acid.
How make Uranium at home?
could you do a video on dissecting a nicd battery? I need the nickel, and i've got a few of them laying around
Do you think it'd be possible to make aspirins AKA acetylsalicylic acid in the future?
+Firstname Surname Okay, sure thanks :)
+Firstname Surname Well if he really is going to do that, I'd be glad to wait and see the results. Sounds like a really interesting thing to see and I hope that sometime in the future Nurdrage or some other youtube chemist does it :)
+minitos1 every 1st year chemistry student in every developed country have made aspirin.
+Firstname Surname Then he hasn't really made it then. He's just taken salicylic acid and reacted it with acetic acid with an acid catalyst.
+Jenni Haataja Im not a chemistry student though? :P
Are u a professor/teacher/student? Do you do this as a job or side fun?
He is a professional chemist with Ph.D.
show us how to make oxalic acid using sucrose
GOOD MORNING PREPARE 1 LITER OF CHLORIDE PROPIONYL WHAT IS USED?
Can you make a video on how to make BHO?
How far along are you in the pyrimethamine process after this step?
+Mark Rose Still have a few more precursors to go, cyanide, guanidine, trimethyl orthoformate, and chlorine. Then I need to do the actual synthesis which is five steps. So we're looking at least two more months of videos.
+NurdRage Thanks in advance for the in-depth view at the process. Even though most of us will never actually try this, it's extremely fun to watch you do it.
Can 3 euros for a liter of 95% sulfuric acid be considered cheap?
+Earl of Destruction Thats the usual prize, at least in my country.
That's super cheap, here in Canada it costs around 20$ (15€) for a liter of dirty 93%
Hobby Chemists (or Nurd but it won't be worth your time)!
I'm looking for a way to get some acetic anhydride. I want to make isopropyl acetate, which is said to smell fruity. I have 25% concentrated vinegar, and very little glassware. I could probably just buy it, but I'd like to attempt making it first. Any ideas? Thank you :)
I know it weird but is that a voice changer?
Hey how can one extract calcium metal from bones or CaCO3?
Alkaline earth metals are difficult to isolate. Heating the calcium salt to a very high temperature will create Calcium Oxide which can be catalytically reduced/hydrogenated to isolate calcium. This is not efficient or effective however.
now i just goto make some propionic anhydride react with my N-Phenethyl-4-piperidone and im good
thats pertty nice to know that you can make artifical vineger using chemistry and acetone insted of MEK
I like your videos before even watching them, the content is always so good and the quality so great you deserve a nobel prize.
o ya
Nice work like all your work, but this is the video crowded with so much side information that I have a real difficulty to understand how to make the actual propionic acid.... I just was lost in the way even with a pencyl and paper in front...
up late nurdrage? :P
just a question that appeared in my mind will watching some of your older videos,
what kind or why don't acid dissolve glass?
+NurdRage make a video on how to make perchloric acid. It to me seems like a very "interesting" substance but, all videos and research I have done online was rubbish. If you could get back to me it would be much abliged.
Propionic acid? Isn't that what's in rancid butter, distinctive flavor and all that is favored in certain parts of the world.
why do change you intro sometimes?
+Skudd I like a bit of variety ;)
Ok thanks for the answer :D
Trying to put Shkreli out of business, are we?
the nigga did it now aye
nurdrage how to make methyl ethyl ketone
Make Carborane!
dat canadian tire bleach tho
Breaking Bad shit right here >:D
hey,nurdrage show us your lab.i like to see it .answer my question. pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease.i think you show your laboratory for me and your RUclips friends .and merry Christmas to you
Oh man, you need some bigger glassware.
What up my homie can you make some dopamine and serotonin and oxytocin for me?
iv allways wondered if this guy is 13 with a voice changer...
This series is a bit late given that Martin Shkreli was arrested for securities fraud already (the Pyrimethamine price increase guy)
+RaceOfAce Should i stop?
Please don't, I love you.
goooooooooooooooood
"chloforom" -NurdRage 2k15
This is fascinating but I am drunk and I can't focus or understand a fuck.
pethidine anologs anyone?
I watch every video for what? lol
Man. It's kind of funny; I have basically no understanding of what you're saying here, but each of your videos thus far has been a... Well, what's like a page-turner for a video? Riveting.
yolo swag