@g patton
Great master @ G.Patton
I have a question
ive tried this with basically 0 yield. Many many times. Except with n-methyl-l-alanine.
Im not super experienced chemist but i have fucked around for a year or two. And have learnt few things here and there
Then i tried it again and tweaked it a bit, out of pure frustration.
So what i did was, after adding adding the Benzaldehyde as slowly as possible to n methylalanine, i refluxed with acetic acid until the Benzaldehyde didn't form a separate layer when i stopped stirring.
And the rm became much clearer but with a white substance with a snot like texture precipitated out.
Then i added powdered zinc and slowly add phosphoric acid while stirring.
I left this to stir over night with mild heating,
Next morning woke up to a crystal clear reaction mix. And the zinc that has turned almost white
Added dilute HCL Washed, filtered & Crystallized.
Dissolved it again in diluted HCL. (i was hoping this would make the acetate and phosphate salts that there might be in to HCL)
Concentrated, and left to crystallize overnight to yield the crystals in the photos.
I tested it and ot was my first violet result with Chen Kao. I assumed that there might be lots of impurities
But what i found is that some of the crystals really was that water soluble as some of the other crystals.
I recrystallized it various times in an attempt to purify it.
Because i noticed when i did a melting point test that it didn't really melt at all. It just turned brown.
Last recrystallization the bottom of the beaker mysteriously dis broke of spilling 120g(most of it.) in solution
So don't know what yield was
But my Question is-
Could my addition of zinc and phosphoric acid have made a difference.
Or did i fuck it up because of my ignorance and/or lack of understanding.