I've been trying to synthesize phenobarbital for some time now using the below pathway:
The step I seem to be having issues on is unfortunately the very first one, which is the synthesis of the ethyl phenylcyanoacetate. Now there is an OrgSyn publication on it's synthesis (src) with the below pathway:
Here are my lab notes (attached in PDF format). I'm pretty sure I just messed up by letting it distill to dryness when I was supposed to be adding toluene at the same rate the DCE/EtOH mixture was distilling off.
If anyone has gotten this to work and has some pointers, that would be excellent (bonus points for pictures or videos).
Hopefully BBgate would consider doing a phenobarbital synth video
The step I seem to be having issues on is unfortunately the very first one, which is the synthesis of the ethyl phenylcyanoacetate. Now there is an OrgSyn publication on it's synthesis (src) with the below pathway:
Here are my lab notes (attached in PDF format). I'm pretty sure I just messed up by letting it distill to dryness when I was supposed to be adding toluene at the same rate the DCE/EtOH mixture was distilling off.
If anyone has gotten this to work and has some pointers, that would be excellent (bonus points for pictures or videos).
Hopefully BBgate would consider doing a phenobarbital synth video