Synthesis
Freshly distilled thionyl chloride (250 mL) was slowly added dropwise to stirred anhydrous ethanol (400 mL) at -10 °C. After maintaining the reaction at -10 °C for 20 min, β-alanine (82.56 g, 0.93 mol) was slowly added to the thionyl chloride/ethanol mixture. The reaction mixture was heated to reflux for 2 hours. Upon completion of the reaction, the excess thionyl chloride was removed by distillation and the reaction solution was concentrated to half of the original volume under reduced pressure. The white precipitate precipitated from the concentrate was collected by filtration and washed with cold ether to give a final white crystalline powder of β-alanine ethyl ester hydrochloride (124.34 g, 87% yield).
References
[1] Bioorganic and Medicinal Chemistry Letters, 2012, vol. 22, # 19, p. 6200 - 6204
[2] Bioorganic and Medicinal Chemistry, 2009, vol. 17, # 6, p. 2336 - 2350
[3] European Journal of Medicinal Chemistry, 2011, vol. 46, # 1, p. 11 - 20
[4] Journal of Heterocyclic Chemistry, 2013, vol. 50, # 5, p. 1067 - 1070
[5] Russian Chemical Bulletin, 2017, vol. 66, # 1, p. 136 - 142