MDMA/Synthesis

MDMA, its synthesis and most of its precursors are illegal in most parts of the world. If you do not have advanced chemistry experience and / or lack an appropriate approval from the respective drug enforcement agency in your country, do not follow and apply the methods as outlined here. This material is educational and we are in no way responsible for your actions.

This manual is protected. It was independently verified and is fully based on publicly available publications.

Registry numbers

Note that some of these CAS numbers have been removed, but still hold value when obtaining compounds (i.e. at sigma-aldrich).

Name	CAS#	DEA#
HCI salt	[64057-70-1]	7405
Freebase	[42542-10-9]
R-(-)-Isomer HCI salt	[69558-31-2]
S-(+)-Isomer HCI salt	[69558-32-3]
R-(-)-Isomer freebase	[81262-70-6]
S-(+)-Isomer freebase	[66142-89-0]
[d5]-MDMA	[136765-43-0]
N-CH2-[3H]-labeled	[128671-19-2]
N-[11C]-Me	[153506-20-8]
R-Isomer N-[11C]-Me	[165172-59-8]

Synthesis

M. Swist, J. Wilamowski, A. Parczewski (2004)

Chemicals and reagents

In the synthesis of MDMA, the following reagents were used: formic acid (98%), hydrochloric acid (36–38%), methylene chloride, sodium hydroxide, acetic acid (99.5%), acetone, diethyl ether, toluene, isopropanol, hydrogen peroxide ( 33%), sulfuric acid (95%) (all POCh, Poland, analytical grade), piperonal (99%, Aldrich, for synthesis), isosafrole (97%, Aldrich, for synthesis), safrole (97%, Aldrich, for synthesis), nitroethane (96%, Aldrich, for synthesis), cyclohexylamine (99%, Aldrich, for synthesis), ethyl formate (97%, Aldrich, for synthesis), hydrobromic acid (62%, Aldrich, analytical grade), methylamine solution (33% in abs. ethyl alcohol, Aldrich, analytical grade), methylamine aqueous solution (40%, Aldrich, analytical grade), diethyl ether (anhydrous, >99%, Aldrich, A.C.S. Reagent), methanol (Merck, HPLC grade), NaBH₄ (Aldrich, for synthesis), NaBH₃(CN) (Aldrich, for synthesis).

In impurity profiling experiments, the following reagents were used: carbonate buffer, pH 10 (10.7 ml, 0.1 M NaOH; 50 ml, 0.05 M NaHCO₃; 39.3 ml H₂O), n-heptane (Aldrich, HPLC grade), phosphate buffer, pH 7 (Merck), diphenylamine (Supelco, used as internal standard).