clearly_not_atara
International Hazard
Posts: 2802
Registered: 3-11-2013
Member Is Offline
Mood: Big
|
|
"Unprecedented" reduction of amides
In the course of online discussion of organic synthesis, we are often tempted, but have learned to avoid, proposing a route where an amide is
converted by reduction to the corresponding amine. It is conceptually simple, and it makes it much easier to imagine synthesizing all manner of
compounds, but the reduction requires -- we thought -- all kinds of very reactive or expensive reagents and forcing conditions, like LAH or DiBAl, so
nobody could normally do it. Nobody even thinks about it, because it's impossible.
That is until Das et al published this paper. Zinc acetate and triethoxysilane reduce amides while ignoring ketones, alkenes, azo groups, and almost
everything else. Triethoxysilane may be a silane, but it is air-stable and relatively cheap, and the precursor HSiCl3 is also cheap and produced by
the direct reaction of hydrogen chloride and silicon.
Tertiary amides only, I'm afraid. Others require more complicated silanes and zinc triflate (later publication, available from https://s3.amazonaws.com/academia.edu.documents/46599081/che... ).
Attachment: das2009.pdf (209kB) This file has been downloaded 517 times
|
|
Loptr
International Hazard
Posts: 1348
Registered: 20-5-2014
Location: USA
Member Is Offline
Mood: Grateful
|
|
I think triethoxysilane shows up on eBay from time to time.
I can see this being interesting to some that would want a dialkylated indole starting from that plant hormone.
Interesting none the less.
"Question everything generally thought to be obvious." - Dieter Rams
|
|
byko3y
National Hazard
Posts: 721
Registered: 16-3-2015
Member Is Offline
Mood: dooM
|
|
Yea, but 1 mole of triethoxysilane costs approx 8 times more than a mole of LAH. And you can make aluminium hydrides by a "simple" reaction of sodium
hydride with aluminium chloride.
|
|
clearly_not_atara
International Hazard
Posts: 2802
Registered: 3-11-2013
Member Is Offline
Mood: Big
|
|
Trichlorosilane is way cheaper than LAH or triethoxysilane, and the conversion thereof to triethoxysilane is facile. E.g.:
https://patents.google.com/patent/US3985781A/en
Also, LAH is on the SSL:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DEA_list_of_chemicals#Special_...
Also, blowing HCl (not flammable) over Si to make HSiCl3 sounds a lot easier than blowing H2 (explosive) over molten Na to make NaH. But
that's just me. I'm not actually going to do either of those, thanks.
[Edited on 11-7-2018 by clearly_not_atara]
|
|
wildfyr
Harmless
Posts: 25
Registered: 23-6-2018
Member Is Offline
|
|
byko3y,
While LAH is cheaper, you aren't getting selectivity and mild reaction conditions. They reduced an amide in the presence of an ester in that paper.
|
|
zed
International Hazard
Posts: 2284
Registered: 6-9-2008
Location: Great State of Jefferson, City of Portland
Member Is Offline
Mood: Semi-repentant Sith Lord
|
|
The restriction of LiAlH4 sales, predates current regulations.
Perhaps liability fears, are at the root of this.
Not impossible to find sellers, but not easy either.
The reductions can be achieved via NaBH4 and AlCl3, in Diglyme... But, yields are less than spectacular.
Can this Silane reduction produce Tryptamines? Unknown?
|
|
CuReUS
National Hazard
Posts: 928
Registered: 9-9-2014
Member Is Offline
Mood: No Mood
|
|
Do they ship to individuals though ? I thought they didn't deliver silanes to individuals since they are a fire hazard and transporting them is a huge
headache.That was the reason this idea went bust -https://chemistry.mdma.ch/hiveboard/serious/000194986.html
recently I came across a thread-http://www.sciencemadness.org/talk/viewthread.php?tid=84442
where the authors converted an aldehyde to acid and subsequently to an acyl azide.The interesting thing was that they used a reaction originally
intended to oxidise alcohols to aldehydes/ketones without further oxidation to acid.
The way they did it was by "disguising" the aldehyde to look like an alcohol(via a bisulfite adduct) to fool the reagents into thinking that they were
carrying out the original oxidation of an alcohol to aldehyde,rather than an aldehyde to acid
seeing that made me think that if we could make one fuctional group look like another,we could use reactions meant for the 2nd functional group to
work on the first.
So in this case,if we could make the amide look like a ketone(by decreasing the electronegativity of the N atom to that of C,for example),we could
theoretically reduce amides to amines using wolf kishner.
|
|