[Hopeless]

hi ya,

i was reading in a previous post :

If you want a quick and easy synthesis of benzaldehyde, heat phenylalanine with 5N NaOH solution for 5 hours, at 110 C, it then decomposes, yielding benzaldehyde.

About as quick and easy as one can get, aspartame might be a good starting point for cheap as hell phenylalanine

so i've got a few questions:

1. Any ideas on how to purify extract the phenylalanine from NutraSweet? or can you use it as is?

2. Anyone done this before out of NutraSweet?

p.s. i can't reply to the original post on benzaldehyde as it's longer thean 120 days old

cheers..

[shelanachium]

I have grave doubts as to whether this would work. Presuming benzaldehyde to form in the first place, under such high-temperature alkaline conditions as 5M NaOH at 110 degrees for five hours the benzaldehyde would undergo the Cannizzaro reaction to give benzoate ion and benzyl alcohol:

2 C6H5CHO + OH- ---> C6H5CO2- + C6H5CH2OH

If any benzaldehyde escaped this reaction it could steam-distil  out of the reaction mixture, together with the benzyl alcohol and methanol - no other components or products being volatile. (Nutra-Sweet is the methyl ester of the aspartic acid/phenylalanine dipeptide)

It should not be necessary to extract the phenylalanine first, with alkali Nutra-Sweet will break down to aspartate (non-volatile), phenylalanine and methanol.

Much easier to buy the benzaldehyde I'd think - often used as almond essence.