Turning vanilla flavoring into dopamine!

Since so many people seem to be asking, dopamine is not psychoactive and will not get you high. Medically it’s used to increase blood pressure as it does not cross the blood brain barrier and no I will not eat it lol.

A tip from someone else with a ton of random assorted chemicals: cataloge them all in a journal or word doc. Otherwise you'll never remember what things you have when you need them.

I see a lot of people with these glass pipes making pure dopamine around my neighbourhood, day and night. Its so heartwarming to see how many hobbyists are taking up DIY science these days and staying off drink and drugs

damn the backyard scientist really came in clutch with ths one

Man i love how he smoothly avoid saying methylamine 😂😂

I know nothing about chemistry but I enjoyed your enthusiasm and am very impressed with your knowledge. And you succeeded, good work!

Hey Harrison! Great work on this one. I have been waiting for someone to post on this synthesis for years, as the synthesis of phenethylamines from vanillin is well-established in the literature, but incredibly rare to have been filmed. I remember reading and seeing many clandestine chemists use the exact same reactions you have performed today starting from vanillin to form mescaline (and analogs), MDMA, MDA, TMA, and a few other exciting drugs. I know this isn't the scope of your page, but as a chemist, I think it's notable to see how a single reaction, the Henry reaction, has been used to synthesize an incredible array of drugs from one single precursor vanillin. Few things though. First, vanillin is endothermic and will cool the solution it's being dissolved into (it's not from your evaporative losses that it became cold). Also, be very careful while drying solvents in open air like that. There is a reason chemists have shorter life spans than the general population, and solvent inhalation is one of them. Finally, the reduction you performed could've been optimized. The acid in the reaction serves not only as the "solvent" to maintain a low pH but also as a reactant. The zinc reduction goes through an organo-metallic step which is mediated by proton concentration, and available electrons in solution. The zinc serves to donate these electrons into the solution for the nitro to "pick up". The nitro however is not reduced to an amine just yet, and forgoes a N-OH intermediate which is eliminated in an acid solution. What this means in essence is that all the acid has to be added for the reaction to go to completion and reduce the product, and the reaction must be refluxed after acid addition to fully complete the reaction. I think doing this would've dramatically increased your yield.

Dont you dare quit bro! This is your calling, you've definitely got something special here you just need to fine tune your process now (video creation process/chemistry process) and you'll be golden. I very much enjoyed this video and I know a ton of other people did as well. You're gonna blow up and be set for life man...go for it!

How long your thank you was is something you don't see often. Actual appreciation, that more than anything else earned my sub.😊

I got excited near 11:00. I thought he was teaching us a new way to synth molly lol. Literally why I started studying organic chem.

Dude you got some talent. Keep at if. You got my attention. Shout out from Australia

That was excellent, as an old guy who had been interested in chemistry since a child, I really enjoyed your video, I'll give you a super thanks, keep posting , thank you SE

Man that's super awesome I'm so glad I found your channel can't wait to watch the rest

The reaction in the segment where you put on the balloon... I mean, the whole thing is fun but that first few of it where it was spattering that chartreuse and dripping in the steam. It was beautiful in a way I didn't expect.

I can think of other stuff to do with vanillin... Great video as always!

Longer videos with more breakdown please! This is so fascinating! Great work!

Cool video man. I think it’s great that you were able to make this most awesome compound! It was frustrating to watch you mess a few things up haha! There is a certain amount of TLC and patience that is required when working in the lab after all :) I think following this procedure will yield better results if you take time to purify your reagents and solvents first. And then double check your stoichiometry after you have clean reagents. This way your weights are a lot more accurate. The reaction you did to create the nitrostyrene could have benefited from some more time, and perhaps better monitoring of temperature, and defiantly would have been better to extract more times, wash more times and recrystallise with maybe some more washing. It’s always important to go for purity over time and loss, because as each step continues you are going to introduce more and more different impurities that can have all kinds of side reactions, some of which can be cyclic mechanisms that continue to attack and degrade your reagents or products the entire time they themselves are reacting or forming. I think you also over shot your ph. Overall I think you get an A for effort because hell, you actually did the reaction and went to the trouble to make a video, which is 2x more than what I’ve done haha. But when it comes to execution I think this is a D or C- Keep up the good work!!

I love your videos! Keep it up, I'm sure your channel will explode in popularity soon <3

Didn't need to go through the whole chemical process, just put it into ice cream and there you go, pure dopamine

Amazing video, your presentation kept me watching even though I probably didn't understand 75% of what you were talking about. Keep at it and one day you're gonna be an amazing chemist. Stuff is like Chinese language to me. Thanks, looking forward to watching your other vids.