[linguist99]

I would like to avoid bubbling HCl into ethanol.  Can anyone see a potential problem with the following?
Anhydrous calcium chloride in excess to which sufficient conc. HCl to produce the necessary amount of HCl gas is added in a test tube.  Dry ethanol is added to this, cold to increase the solubility of HCl and to offest the inevitable rise in temperature.  Once the gas evolution has stopped, filter to remove the calcium chloride.  Possibly then store the ethanol/HCl over more calcium chloride to make sure it's really dry.

[Babcock_Hall]

There are others here with much greater synthetic expertise than I have.  However, one idea I saw in a previous thread was to generate methanolic HCl in situ by reacting acetyl chloride with methanol.  I don't see why the same idea should not work with ethanol.

[linguist99]

Agreed.  I can't see why it wouldn't work.  Thanks.  I'm trying to avoid using anything but very simple and safe-ish chemicals.

[AWK]

1.5 M HCl in ethanol is commercial

[linguist99]

It is, but I want to make it not buy it because the commercial price is ridiculous given the raw materials.

[Dan]

As above, I would use AcCl for this provided the EtOAc side product is not a problem for your application, I do this all the time. You can also use TMSCl.

[wildfyr]

I agree with dan to try to use acetyl chloride of TMS chloride (both give easily distillable products from hydrolysis). Or just buy it, it really isn't expensive, especially if you factor in the cost of labor to try to make it yourself. Your calcium chloride idea seems like it would be a mess trying to get the calcium chloride out. You are gonna need A LOT because you aren't just drying wet solvent, you are using it to remove bulk water. The CaCl2 is gonna be this awful glop to work with after it absorbs that much water.