Bupropion to cathinone\mcat?

[drugsaregood]

Hello! Swim was wondering how hard such a conversion would be, for a hypothetical situation? I'm not 100% sure on the rules reguarding asking such a question, but I hope it's alright, and is a legal question too. SWIM is not planning on doing it, or anything of the sorts (Not conspiring)...

Would such a conversion be really difficult?

[northernstar]

interesting idea...wouldent mind knowing myself. ive never seen a cat recipie starting with that but who knows. u got pix of the molecules?

[robojunkie]

This would be far more trouble than it would ever be worth. If one was very lucky they may be able to initiate some type of Sn1 type reaction on the t-butyl group with a some sort of alcoholic ammonia silver nitrate complex (like as in it is vaguely possible the silver salt may exchange with the amino group and the alcohol solvates off the t-butyl cation, and proton transfer would give the chlorocathinone complex, later broken up with chloride salts)a. However this is a shot in the dark. The only other way would be "exhaustive methylation" with potassium carbonate and methyl iodide in acetone giving the dimethyl ammonium iodide salt of bupropion, then this with a PTC like TBAB, ammonia/methlyamine and a bromide salt will likely displace dimethyl tbutylamine and then immediate substitution with the ammonia/methylamine would give the chloro derivative. Then you have to dechlorinate the ring (ie, reduce it) likely with some type of cuprate salt or copper dust being the better bet. Likelihood of success on this for one who knows what they're doing with appropriate equipment is not high and yields would likely be shite.

One could also attempt to oxidize the bupropion to the imine (double bond from the main chain to the N), then transfer this to a large excess of methylamine or ammonia solution in something non alcoholic and non aqueous until it equilibrates leaving tbutylamine. Still gotta then reduce it, and one may get lucky reducing it with borohydride before the phenyl ketone gets reduced which one doesn't want unless one was going all the way to amphetamine derivatives. Otherwise there are selective reducers that will take out the imine w/o the ketone. Still have to deal with that chloro though. Grignard (magnesium and ether) is out of the question because of the ketone, otherwise one could have made the arylmagnesium chloride and just hit it with water to reduce it. Problem is as the Grignard forms it will likely attack the ketone.

This is obviously a complete waste of time, just something fun for me to think about for a few minnutes.
Sorry...

[oldscratch]

SWIM Did the potassium permaganate thing when the HIVE was up...easy as pie...Psuedo...PP...Refridge...Stove...Hcl and Acetone and BAMM...easy cookin like Betty Crocker...Beats the Chromate thing too....Russians invented that synth so the developely disabled could do it...Heard it was bigtime in The Midwest back in 98 to 02..Swim tried it and thought it was a waste of good Psuedo...from the methamphet-cook angle...brings back memories "...... oldscratch"...

[oldscratch]

Not that the effects are distastefull ...but in MCAT vs. Methamphet...MCAT is a body high where there is more physical speediness...Methamphet has more euphoria and energy and mental stimulation...When SWIM did MCAT first time it was freebase so SWIM felt the immidiate shifts in heart-rate with a gritty-push SWIM would say...yes mild sensation of euphoria but it took repeated doses to achieve a longer lasting high...MCAT is not a bad drug....but SWIMS prefference was always Methamphet...and from a financial (makin$) methamphet got MCAT beat for profit...in most circles- at least SWIMS old set...."BUT THE SYNTHS A NO BRAINER...THATS FUR SURE "...."oldscratch"

[robojunkie]

Robo you know your shit! Were you a bee back in the day?

methylamine= roadblock for normal people, right? Like it's watched, and pretty tricky to synth good enough methylamine? Thats what I've been told.

The one good thing about using bupropion as a precursor is you have shit to start with and if you ruin it, so what...

But if you want MCAT, why not just oxidize psudephederine with KMnO4? Everyone knows where to get sudafed, and you can get potassium permagranate (sp?) anywhere, too. Try chemistry sets on ebay!

No, never had the pleasure of reading through the hive when it was active. I knew of strike prior to the bust from his books and had heard of it but didn't have a comp at the time. I've lurked on wet dreams which seems to be the replacement site for meth/e/related stuff but never spent much time there, seemed like there was way to much bickering over inane shit that could never be settled w/o the two people, two benchtops and hoods, number of chems and a judge's panel filled with tweakers and rollers. However, way way back when I was a teenager my first exposure to chem was looking up the structures of my favorite drugs, noting the similarities of many and how it seemed to relate to there relative strength, then I'd look up all the interconversions and syntheses and was really into it. I never would have had the skillset or access at the time (the time when I would have been full of the fuck it all attitude enough to try some of them) and never did try them, but I actually found I really liked the subject of total synthesis on its own, and that's how I wound up where I am.

So, I basically owe my carreer and any future benefits to myself, my family and the whole of mankind to DRUGS. Drugs don't necessarily destroy dreams, sometimes they help create them too, or at least set you on the path to get there! Take that, ONDCP!!!

BTW, methylamine is absolutely one of the top List I never ever purchase for anything illegal, hell I'd be nervous if I had to order it with all the proper paperwork. I've had to order List I's a couple of times and I absolutely hate having to fill out dea paperwork. Its not a lot, only specifics regarding why you are purchasing and a summary of how it fits into the research plans. But methylamine, being such a simple chem could be made a number of ways, some easier than others. Hell, I have to imagine simple methanol, ammonia and concentrated HBr (methanolic HBr) in a heated "pipe bomb" would work. Or the MeOH, NH3 and formic acid. Or MeOH, iodine and phosphorous with ammonia (ammonia after all Iodine is reacted of course, NI3 is made from ammonia and iodine and is very shock sensitive, I think its an old school primer) may work, possibly anything that can "activate" the OH group (like a proton makes it MeOH2+ which is a good leaving group that could be knocked out with an amine or ammonia as well as the addition of an "electrophile" like making the tosylate or triflate or mesylate, etc, and Sn2'ing that out with ammonia.) Hell, I bet if someone took a shitload of methanol (dry) and saturated it with ammonia gas and heated the everliving fuck out of it in a pressure safe container, especially with silica or molecular sieves to soak up the water produced (to drive any equilibrium to completion) would probably work. Methylamine is often sold as a MeOH solution anyway.

Let me see if I can explain it like this: ammonia is more basic than water. OH- is more basic than ammonia, so generally ammonia isn't just gonna knock out the OH- as is. However acid/base talk is all about equillibria, so if something is say 6 levels higher in pH scale (as ammonia is over water), there is still 10 to the -6 times that water acts more basic in a given solution. So because there's always a tiny amount of a weaker base in play, one can add an acid and even though the H+ almost always goes to ammonia, once in a while it hits MeOH and when it does if there's enough heat (energy) the free nucleophilic ammonia will knock out the water, replacing it and losing its H+ to another ammonia in one fell swoop. And since displacing NH2 from MeNH2 with water is incredibly more difficult than the reverse, eventually the vast majority of MeOH would have its OH displaced as water and substituted with the second molecule (hence the name, Sn2), which is ammonnia. Does this make sense or do analogies work better for people?

Imagine a huge pool and a tiny bucket connected by a very small tube at the bottom. Nearly all the water is almost always in the pool, right? But imagine the pool has no leaks, but the bucket does have a small one. Even though the bucket never has more than a tiny fraction of the water, eventually both the pool and bucket will empty out, all through the leak in the bucket. The pool is water, the bucket is ammonia, the tube is the acid base equilibria, catalyzed by the stronger acid added, and the thing collecting all the drips out of the bucket is the Me part of MeOH meaning MeNH2 or methylamine. Does that one work for peeps? (and I'm talking ones that aren't familiar with chem, I know those who are already get it, this is meant for those that don't).

Oh yeah, edit: Two other things of interest: PURE methylamine is a gas everywhere except maybe the canadian winter, it boils somewhere below zero, like maybe -20 or -30 (I could look it up, but I'm lazy), that's why its usually sold in solution (yes, gases can dissolve in liquids just like solids can). Also, methylamine, as well as ammonia and dimethylamine don't have brain cells, so they don't know that they should stop at the first rxn. Methylamine can do the same exact thing as ammonia and so can dimethylamine, so this is why these types of reactions always use a huge excess of ammonia or something like TMS-NH2 or (TMS)2NH (TMS means trimethylsilyl, which is a "protecting group" that can easily be lopped off later, if the rxn conditions don't do it first, though you can see how having two groups already there that are easy to later remove helps. This is the idea behind the "Gabriel Reaction" which uses a thing called phthalimide (picture a ring like acetic anhydride except instead of a methyl on each end each end touches the ring and the middle O is replace by NH. Only one electrophile can react with it. Sadly however, one usually uses hydrazine to remove the protecting phtalic acid as phthalic hydrazide. There's a reason for this too, but I am familiar (way too familiar) with hearing the phrase "too much information, asshole!" Otherwise if one used like one to one ratios one would get a statistical mix, 1/3 MeNH2, 1/3 NH3 and 1/3 Me2NH. But the more ammonia there is the better the odds that the Me-whatever present will react with it and not the MeNH2 just made. Then they can be separated, since who gives a shit about ammonia, its everywhere with a can of lye and a supermarket and a forest with lots of downwind. Oh and dry ice of course.

[robojunkie]

^^^Holy shit do I ramble!!!

[robojunkie]

the good thing is you dont need methylamine to go from ketone (MDP2P) to amine. If I had dreamed a batch of ketone, I'd use the aluminum/nitromethane route instead of the methylamine.

Oh and BTW I can think of something a lot better to do with Ammonia gas than make boring methylamine.

While your talking chems, a couple things I'm wondering:
how do crank chemists get hypophosphoric acid? I mean you cant find that shit ANYWHERE! Can it be made from phosphoric acid or something? (supposing no elemental phossy is available)

whats the best place to start learning organic chem? I have a job, cant go back to school, but I would like to learn more than what i learned on the hive

Best advice, pick up the thicker (usually 800 to a 1000 pages) organic text at some college bookstore and read it from chapter 1 to the end, and do the HW problems at the end like they were a test. Keep track of your "grade" and if you do "fail" a test, reread the chapter. Seriously, besides taking the classes this is the best way to learn the theory, which then helps immensely (and I can't overstate that enough!) in the lab/basement/forest/barn/boat in the middle of the lake/etc.

H3PO2 is kind of a vicious circle. You need either red P or phosphine (PH3, poisonous gas) to make it easily. Reason being is that unlike phosphoric and phosphorous acids, two of the three H's are attached directly to the P. I honestly can't think of anything beyond match strikers (and then there's no point) that would be of help on that road. its actually a fairly odd chem in that it has H's and OH's and the double bond O all on one atom other than carbon. these are usually quite reactive as reducers (since they usually want to have all O's, they give up the H's and their 2 electrons). I doubt any kind of phosphate/phosphoric acid (only everyday P containing chem I can think of) could easily be reduced that far down. hypoP is a full two oxidation states below a phosphate, as in it needs to steal 4 electrons from somewhere. Only iodine or hydrogen come to mind here unless someone is really skilled in electrolytic science. I'm sure the appropriate wet cell could be pushed with enough voltage and a phosphate electrolyte to acquire those electrons, but I don't know a lot about electrochem. I also imagine this type of cell would also, if not primarily, generate phosphine gas, which although useful here, is extremely dangerous!

Many of the meth related reactions are used regularly in mainstream synthesis (meth cooks didn't invent red P/HI or ammonia/lithium or sodium, the first has been known for well over 50 years, the second was published as a birch variation in the seventies on benzyl alcohols. A creative and industrious tweaker just knew where to look and how to analogize plain benzyl alcohol to E/PE which of course are also benzyl alcohols.) The Leuckhart-Wallach (P2P/N-Me-Formamide) is well known and very old, though it is best performed with NMF containing excess formic acid (regardless of the ketone being reductively aminated) as formic acid itself catalyzes the initial formation of the formyl imide as well as being a better reducer to form the formyl amide. Hell plain old methylamine solution with catalytic acid then NaBH4 or NaB(OAc)3H is probably even easier since ya don't need that extra hydrolysis of the formyl amide. Ironically one reaction I don't recall ever having run is the "Nef Reaction" which you referred to I think (making P2Ps out of Nitroalkanes). Though I guess if one was willing to "settle" (or do better IMO in the case of MDA vs MDMA) one could just directly reduce the nitro compound (Oh, wait you said aluminum right? Then that's what you're already saying, forget the nef reaction). Were you referring to something-benzaldehyde and nitromethane (or better yet nitroethane, nitromethane will only give the phenethylamine here) and subsequent reduction to the amine?

Not that it matters, pheylacetaldehyde would be useful as well, many things that could be attacked with and then oxidized as a something-2P or activated for amine substitution or dehydrated for a Ritter reaction/substitution. Its no wonder meth is so cheap and ubiquitous, its such a simple molecule with so many ways of being produced. Imagine if only heroin/morphine/morphinones could be made "from scratch" so easily!!! They have been, morphine over 20 different routes, but none shorter than 15 or so steps that I know of, and all at a horrible cost/benefit ratio that would never be beneficial or better than gardening. Cocaine however, is somewhere in between and can be made in 5 steps, again requiring methylamine (that blessed/damnned N-Methyl group, seems like its in everything good!), succindialdehyde (or derivatives like furan or pyrrole, etc) and acetone dicarboxylate (3 ketones in 1,3,5 arrangemennt for two active methylenes) and I believe at least two of the three if not all three are watched. They're all in the first step, N-methyl 1,4 bridged tropinone (N-Me bridge) called tropane or some shit. From there its childs play. methylchloroformate, reduction, benzoyl chloride and boom! Yayoooooooooo!

[robojunkie]

Duh, I missed it by the time I got to it, you're referring to direct reduction of the nitromethane and then the Schiff's base reduction right?

Oh, that cooler thing I think you're referring to wouldn't be like the rxns I'm talking about, you could have the ammonia as solution in MeOH which would be like a fly swatter to any bees or larvae that used the ammonia that way with Group 1 metals. Course the dry ice can make it such so its all good in the end I spose. Dry ice conndensers are cool shit to watch too, distilling things and collecting as liquid shit that people would never even think of as liquids. Ammonia, methylamine, methyl bromide, methyl chloride, ethyl bromide, dimethyl ether, and on and on, butane, propane. Even better is a liquid nitrogen condenser. You can "distill" and collect liquid OXYGEN that way, which is really cool looking (an odd faint blue liquid) but in extremely dangerous. Gaseous O2 will initiate an endless reaction with any hydrocarbon with a little starter heat that goes on until one runs out. Imagine what happens if the hydrocarbon (like gasoline) and oxygen are 100% unlike air AND liquid (way way denser)? Instant combustion with explosive force on contact. That's why one only uses a liquid N2 trap on their vacuum when absolutely necessary and then takes care to remove said trap before even thinking about turning off that vacuum! Remember pure liquid O2 is also known as liquified rocket fuel (with H2). Think Challenger disaster and shit!