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Originally Posted by Diacetyl-M  Just out of curiosity, doesn't acetic acid turn into acetic anhydried with the right amount of heat/drying? And if so, wouldn't opium be converted to a crude heroin if treated with said product? I may be WAY off there though, anyone with knowledge know about this? I'm pretty sure I've read that this can be done. Tell us how the extraction from the "poppy straw" goes. I'd be curious to know if there is a viable use for the materials left over from scored pods. Interesting thread. |
good question, there's a couple ways i've read of to go about getting acetic anhydride. the practical ways incorporate different reactions involving paths using sodium acetate and glacial acetic acid as starting points. i never read heavily on it though so i can't say for sure what works and what doesn't nor can i comment on the yields/dangers of the process (swim has only used GAA for an unrelated purpose) but i can tell you this.... there are some seriously corrosive acid vapors that are produced through some of the procedures.
sodium acetate can be purchased easily or obtained by neutralizing OTC dilute acetic acid (vinegar) with sodium bicarbonate making the sodium acetate salt. you cannot separate acetic acid from the water with heating or freezing. it looks like you can on paper (diff mp, diff bp, azeotrope is fairly high) but it's not a practical way to go about it. it is not an azeotrope but it behaves almost like one. maybe it's water's vapor pressure that carries over most of the acetic acid as the first fraction, i can't recall. but either way it would take many many distillation or a lot of freezing to slowly/incrementally get the acetic acid separated from the h2o. so you take a different approach.
dilute acetic acid (vinegar) to sodium acetate:
need tons of vinegar and add sodium bicarbonate to the vinegar until it stops foaming (until it is neutralized). then boil the solution until the sodium acetate begins to crystallize. then filter off the wet crystals and dry under high heat until TOTALLY DRY. you now have your sodium acetate.
sodium acetate to glacial acetic acid:
combine the sodium acetate with concentrated h2so4, nasty so2 and corrosive acetic acid fumes will evolve. once that is complete then attach the flask to a distillation apparatus and distill at 110C for a clear liquid, this is a slightly wet GAA. there will be charred sodium sulfate and unreacted sodium acetate in the distilling flask and a slightly wet GAA in the receiving flask. now add dehydrated mgso4 to the slightly wet GAA and heat to high heat for a couple hours then distill the flask to dryness. the receiving flask will contain your glacial acetic acid! be careful it smells harmless like vinegar but it is a VERY corrosive nasty acid. just smelling it in concentration can lead to sore, dry throat, nasal passages, etc.
i gave a brief overview and did not give any amounts because anyone who really wants to try this needs to go read up on it first because these are strong acids with nasty acid vapors. this is not to be taken lightly. the most difficult step is probably going from sodium acetate/gaa to acetic anhydride but i will refer you to rhodium or sciencemadness for that. i believe you use the gaa to make acetyl chloride (good luck with that one) then use acetyl chloride + sodium acetate = acetic anhydride + hcl (be careful of those fumes)
as for going from poppies to heroin, i'm going to have to refer you to rhodium for that as i believe it goes beyond what this site's purpose is of course. you will first need to extract, isolate, and purify the morphine from the poppy product before even thinking of reacting it with anything. garbage in, garbage out.
h**p://www.sciencemadness.org/talk/viewthread.php?tid=9
h**p://www.erowid.org/archive/rhodium/chemistry/anhydrides.html