Well you know how it is that once there is an interesting looking problem that should have a simple solution, there is nothing you can do about the tendency to keep thinking about it as you are reading and so forth. vandanas@... asked how to make C2H5OD. Here is a solution that ought to be easy to do:
Take pure anhydrous ethanol, it must be anhydrous or it will not work, and add metallic sodium to it. You will get the salt C2H5ONa from this and hydrogen gas evolves. Bubbles of H2 will tell you that the reaction is proceeding and you have the sodium alcoholate. If you now add ordinary water the salt will hydrolyze to ethanol + NaOH. That much is known but do not do that. If instead of water, you add an excess of D2O you should get your C2H5OD and NaOD. I did not look up the
dissociation constants of D2O -> D+ + OD-
and of C2H5OD -> D+ + C2H5O-
but D in the alcohol should be much smaller than D in the D2O for this to work. This would be true for the case of hydrogen, so it should be true for deuterium, too.
Bill Isakson
-----William E.J. Isakson, El Cerrito, CA, CatalyticChemist@...
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