Can you help me manufacture sodium ethyl sulfate
ETHYLSULFURIC ACID SODIUM
ETHYLSULFURIC ACID SODIUM
You can buy sodium ethyl sulfate. It is OTC substance.
What is your source of sodium ethyl sulfate? From what I recall it's definitely not OTC at least where I'm at.
You can buy it from chemical manufacturers but the prices are absolutely ridiculous. Just look at Sigma Aldrich, they sell this shit for 62€/g.
You can buy it from chemical manufacturers but the prices are absolutely ridiculous. Just look at Sigma Aldrich, they sell this shit for 62€/g.
I recommend doing this reaction in bulk. Check out this synthesis for sodium ethyl sulfate :
The temperature control is critical! It must never go above 115 °C otherwise the equilibrium changes and diethyl ether is produced instead of ethyl sulfate.
All reagents must be anhydrous! The presence of water in this reaction reduces the yield. Do not use denaturated ethanol, the denatonium decomposes when heated contaminating the product. If done properly the post-reflux solution should be transparent, possibly with a light yellow tint. If it is yellow or orange you're using impure reagents.
Drying tube on top of the condenser helps to keep out moisture.
Do not evaporate at the final stage! When heated like this the sodium ethyl sulfate breaks down. Only air dry the solution. Using a fan helps to speed things up.
There is a variation of this reaction which uses calcium carbonate before the addition of sodium carbonate. I completely advise against it. It's added to convert the ethyl sulfate into the insoluable calcium ethyl sulfate. Not only is it completely unnecessary but it also adds to the time and workload and contaminates the final product signifficantly. When only sodium carbonate is used the ethyl sulfate is kept in an aqueous solution which you later separate by filtration and dry.
There is also another variation which uses sodium bisulfate instead of sulfuric acid. This does work but the yields are low from my experience. It also contaminates the product which shows in form of milky-like crystals which tend to form on walls of the crystalizing dish.
Requirements
- Ethanol (EtOH /C2H6O/CH3CH2OH, 99%, 180 mL)
- Sulfuric acid (H2SO4 /H2O4S, 95%+, 80 mL)
- Sodium carbonate (Na2CO3 /CNa2O3)
- Water (H2O, 300 mL)
Procedure
To a necked RBF (500 mL) add ethanol and sulfuric acid dropwise 30 min with an addition funnel. Reflux 3 h at 110 °C. Put ice in a beaker (1 L+) and transfer the solution there. Add water (300 mL). Prepare a conc. solution of water and sodium carbonate and slowly pour it into the beaker in portions until pH = neutral. This reation is highly violent! Filter, wash the filter cake with water. Air dry with a fan for ~48 h.Theory
When heated, sulfuric acid protonates the oxygen in ethanol forming an ethyl oxonium ion that parcipitates in a SN2 reaction also known as Fisher esterification. The oxonium releases a small amount of water and the hexacarbon product forming ethyl sulfate, a negligible amount of diethyl ether which boils off and a small amount of carcinogenic diethyl sulfate. The ethyl sulfate is then converted into a sodium salt by the addition of sodium carbonate. The sodium carbonate also neutralizes residual sulfuric acid in an acid-base reaction.. The ice helps to cool things down reducing the violence of the reaction.The temperature control is critical! It must never go above 115 °C otherwise the equilibrium changes and diethyl ether is produced instead of ethyl sulfate.
All reagents must be anhydrous! The presence of water in this reaction reduces the yield. Do not use denaturated ethanol, the denatonium decomposes when heated contaminating the product. If done properly the post-reflux solution should be transparent, possibly with a light yellow tint. If it is yellow or orange you're using impure reagents.
Drying tube on top of the condenser helps to keep out moisture.
Do not evaporate at the final stage! When heated like this the sodium ethyl sulfate breaks down. Only air dry the solution. Using a fan helps to speed things up.
There is a variation of this reaction which uses calcium carbonate before the addition of sodium carbonate. I completely advise against it. It's added to convert the ethyl sulfate into the insoluable calcium ethyl sulfate. Not only is it completely unnecessary but it also adds to the time and workload and contaminates the final product signifficantly. When only sodium carbonate is used the ethyl sulfate is kept in an aqueous solution which you later separate by filtration and dry.
There is also another variation which uses sodium bisulfate instead of sulfuric acid. This does work but the yields are low from my experience. It also contaminates the product which shows in form of milky-like crystals which tend to form on walls of the crystalizing dish.
Last edited:
↑View previous replies…
synthesis failed, was it because I poured the sulfuric acid too fast?
- By Felix34-73
Can you write the whole gram calculation of 1lt?
What do you mean, yield? This was a long time ago and unfortunately never got to weighing the optimized yields. Mostly because I've done this synthesis numerous times and became tired of it. The yields vary a lot when you start with it so there was no real analytical value. Also even if done properly this reaction unavoidably creates some byproducts so you can never assume the yield to be precise. If you mean that I should rewrite the whole synthesis to yield 1 g of it then do it yourself fam. There is no complex math involved in doing this.
- By Felix34-73
What we mean is how much chemical goes into 1 liter balloon. You said 160 ml of ethanol and 80 ml of sulfuric acid.
- By Felix34-73
synthesis failed, was it because I poured the sulfuric acid too fast?
↑View previous replies…
- By Felix34-73
I use this, but this is ethanol fireplace fuel and it's very watery, I think this ethanol doesn't neutralize the pH, what do you think about it?
I saw a method on youtube is it correct
Yeah this is the method. Do read the theory from my comment it contains some important notes and warnings about this synthesis to help you skip the pain with it and get the best result outright! 
↑View previous replies…
Yep he didn't he used sodium bisulfate instead which is the alternative that I mentioned. Like I said it does work but from my experience leads to low yields. However if you still want to try it it's not a bad idea. Sodium bisulfate is much less aggressive during the neutralization.
Oh yeah and another important thing. In case you use sulfuric acid do not add it all at once. There is a reason why you should add it dropwise over the course of 30 minutes. Mixing sulfuric acid and ethanol produces heat. If you mix everything at once it'll start boiling at temperatures over 115 °C and you produce diethyl ether instead greatly contaminating your final product. You don't necessarily need an addition funnel for this you can just add it very slowly just not all at once.