[macman104]

I am following a paper, and it states "Tetramethylammonium 11-aminoundecanoate was prepared by titrating a methanolic suspension of 11-aminoundecanoic acid with methanolic tetramethylammonium hydroxide (both from Aldrich), evaporating the solvent under reduced pressure, and recrystallizing in tetrahydrofuran."

We have purchased the two items:

Tetramethylammonium hydoxide solution, 25 wt. % in methanol
11-Aminoundecanoic acid 


I'm just a little unclear about the exact process.  From what I can gather I:

Suspend the 11-aminoundecanoic acid in methanol (is this just an eyeball "yea, it looks suspended good enough" type thing?)
Add the Tetramethylammonium hydroxide solution in drops to the equivalence point.

Do I monitor this with a pH meter (titrate to pH 7?), or I'm just not really clear how I go about this procedure.

If anyone wants to see the paper instead, the paper is in JACS "Monodisperse MFe2O4 (M ) Fe, Co, Mn) Nanoparticles"  J. Am. Chem. Soc., 126 (1), 273 -279, 2004.

http://pubs.acs.org/cgi-bin/abstract.cgi/jacsat/2004/126/i01/abs/ja0380852.html

[Borek]

I doubt pH will work, if it is methanolic solution pH electrode may show everything. For sure it will be surprising if the final pH will be 7 (as that's water characteristic).

[macman104]

I doubt pH will work, if it is methanolic solution pH electrode may show everything. For sure it will be surprising if the final pH will be 7 (as that's water characteristic).

Fair enough.  I'm completely unfamiliar with this type of preparation, never experienced it in any of my undergraduate labs.  Do you know how I would go about doing this?

The supporting information doesn't really provide any information for the preparation of this compound so all i have to go off of is that paragraph, and I'm clueless

[Borek]

Honestly I have no idea how to do it correctly. You may try with pH meter - start with very small sample and look how your titration curve will look alike, than in the next try you will know what to look for. You may try with conductometer - same approach, register whole curve first, to know when to finish during preparative titration. I just wonder if the specific resistance of the solution will be not too high from the start.

[AWK]

Probably it will be sufficient to observe a complete dissolution of aminoundecanoic acid. Verify it by stoichiometric calculations

[macman104]

Probably it will be sufficient to observe a complete dissolution of aminoundecanoic acid. Verify it by stoichiometric calculations

That's maybe what I was wondering, just a 1:1 mole ratio of the acid and base, anyway, I guess this'll be some trial and error then.  Or maybe I'll send them an email I suppose, as I don't really want to waste the reagents.  I was hoping this kind of preparation was pretty standard, *shrug* thanks for the thoughts.