Pyridine

[xoxorthadox]

Pyridine It is a highly flammable, weakly alkaline, water-miscible liquid with a distinctive, unpleasant fish-like smell. For the most part it's simple to make as for those who don't have easy access to such precursors. This is a brief on the production of pyridine.
Niacin+copper chromite= (decarboxalation) of niacin= pyridine. I'm currently gathering what I need to prepare copper chromite. but I need to prepare aluminum di-chromite and base it out to produce aluminum chromite, then I can start the production of copper chromite. I'll post more when I have an update on progress any questions or suggestions, or even ideas to aquire pyridine please leave a comment. Where I'm at pyridine is a schedule II regulated and watched chemical...

 

[MadHatter]

Amazing. What will they schedule next . I'll be making pyridine soon as a part of making thalidomide (which is a little-known recreational drug, better known for its terratogenic effects). I have acccess to potassium dichromate, but you could just as well use the much more accessible copper carbonate. Like NileRed did:

 

[MadHatter]

So I did my pyridine synth with mixed results. Due to the accessibility of the reagents, I opted for destructive decarboxylation of niacin through heat, with copper chloride as a catalyst. Apparently using copper chromite produces better yield, but rather than fiddling for weeks to get the perfect catalyst I did it the easy, cheap and accessible way.

Everything went smooth, but I definitely overheated my reaction mass and lost a great deal of product by being impatient. The distillation setup was overflowed with vapors and most of it escaped without condensing (see picture). So I'm going to do it again with greater care when I'm heating.

I collected a nice little yield in the form of crude, impure, yellow pyridine though, which I then distilled into a spider, discarded the first yellow portion from the more volatile impurities in the distilled liquid, and treated the rest with freshly dried magnesium sulphate. Nice, clear, water-free pyridine was the result. The yield was as terrible as the smell, but I have enough for my following trial run.