[fran008]

In the chapter on preparing methylamine from ethanamide by the Hofmann Degradation reaction, my text book states that at after preparing methylamine and dissolving it in HCl and evaporating it to dryness over a boiling water bath, the solid must be immediately broken up and transfered to a round bottomed flask fitted with a reflux condenser. the absolute ethanol must be added? What is the reason for this? If the other product in the solid that is ammonium chloride needs to be seperated from aminomethane hydrochloride why do we use absolute alcohol when ammonium chloride is not soluable in it?

[Carbo Mirakli]

Since the ammonium chloride is not soluble in pure ethanol, it will separate out from the ethanol solution (might not be visible).

When the solution is poured through filter paper, the ammonium chloride will left on the filter paper. After two such filtrations, most of the ammonium chloride would have been removed from the solution.