This reaction is very good on a small scale
In a large reaction, trying to control the exotherm and the large amount of foam by putting the CuCl2 solution slowly into the flask will not give a high yield, there may be nothing but nitroalkanes and the concentration of nanoparticles will be too small to reduce the nitro, the largest flask possible should be used and the entire CuCl2 solution should be added at once
In a large reaction, trying to control the exotherm and the large amount of foam by putting the CuCl2 solution slowly into the flask will not give a high yield, there may be nothing but nitroalkanes and the concentration of nanoparticles will be too small to reduce the nitro, the largest flask possible should be used and the entire CuCl2 solution should be added at once
- By waltjr5858
But when you add all of the cucl2 at once the whole mixture turns black and then within minutes the catalyst falls out of the alcohol and doesn't do much down low... adding drop wise allows a continuous supply of copper to stay in the upper layer acting as a catalyst. So far I have found if you have too much nabh4 left at the time of adding the copper the copper gets reduced wayyy to fast and losses its catalyst activity instead of almost starting as a yellow or brown mixture and slowly turning black before finally falling to the bottom. Thise are the reactions that really work for me when the borohydride amount is low enough to not instantly reduce the copper to black and need the temperature increase to finally cause it to be fully reduced and settle in the bottom slowly over time.... but trying to get the perfect amount of nabh4 at that moment is let's say.... very difficult. Surprisingly the nitro doesn't need much nabh4 in the end to reduce.
