That thread about people's should-have-been inventions, has actually given me a bit of inspiration, to do some digging about some of those antiquated tertiary alkynol type sedative-hypnotics.
Decided to check one of them out as a start point, methylpentynol, fairly simple synthesis, ethynylation of the common solvent MEK (methyl ethyl ketone, butanone) with sodium acetylide. I'm currently looking into alternative routes to produce the acetylide itself, as the standard route involves dropping sodium metal into anhydrous liquid ammonia, before bubbling in acetylene gas. Condensing the NH3 is a nuisance though, one I tend to prefer to work around wherever possible.
Wondering if gassing a suspension of sodium metal in an inert solvent such as diethyl ether with anhydrous ammonia gas might work, it does indeed form the solvated electron blue when the same is done with lithium metal, when performing a reduction akin to the Birch-Benkeser reduction (Li or Na in anhydrous ammonia, often used for reduction of pseudoephedrine to methamphetamine, although in this case, it's the solvated sodium cation that's more important)
Or, possibly there might be an easy way around it, sort of, in that at least lithium acetylide (aka lithium carbide) can be produced in an analogous way to calcium carbide, which is made by heating quicklime and carbon dust together to about 2000 'C. So I'm thinking either do so, build a furnace to perform the reaction in question, and go with the lithium carbide, or try the reaction with commercially available calcium carbide which is fairly common. If no results, I could still use it for generating the acetylene needed to make sodium acetylide/carbide the old fashioned way, in anhydrous ammonia.
