Reduction of Carboxylic Acids with Sodium Borohydride and an Electrophile
Jan William Simek, Thad Tuck, and Kelly Courter Bush Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, California Polytechnic State University San Luis Obispo, CA 93407
Our goal was to develop the new reduction conditions into a procedure applicable to the first-year organic chemistry laboratory, where reduction of the carboxylic acid group has remained an obstacle, notwithstanding the use of borane or LiAlH4 (2) on the microscale. The NaBH4 method with either electrophile can be modified to any scale; in our hands, the use of I2 as the electrophile performed better at the semimicro scale than the H2SO4 method.
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Citation
Simek, Jan William; Tuck, Thad; Bush, Kelly Courter . J. Chem. Educ.1997 74 107.
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