Original Synthesis of Fluorenyl Alcohol Derivatives by Reductive Dehalogenation Initiated by TDAE.

We report here a novel and easy-to-handle reductive dehalogenation of 9-bromofluorene in the presence of arylaldehydes and dicarbonyl derivatives to give the corresponding fluorenyl alcohol derivatives and Darzens epoxides as by-products in tetrakis(dimethylamino)ethylene (TDAE) reaction conditions. The reaction is believed to proceed via two successive single electron transfers to generate the fluorenyl anion which was able to react with different electrophiles. A mechanistic study was conducted to understand the formation of the epoxide derivatives.

Practical and Metal-Free Synthesis of Novel Enantiopure Amides Containing the Potentially Bioactive 5-Nitroimidazole Moiety.

We report here a practical and metal-free synthesis of novel enantiopure amides containing the drug-like 5-nitroimidazole scaffold. The first step was a metal-free diastereoselective addition of 4-(4-(chloromethyl)phenyl)-1,2-dimethyl-5-nitro-1H-imidazole to enantiomerically pure N-tert-butanesulfinimine. Then, the N-tert-butanesulfinyl-protected amine was easily deprotected under acidic conditions. Finally, the primary amine was coupled with different acid chlorides or acids to give the corresponding amides. The mild reaction conditions and high tolerance for various substitutions make this approach attractive for constructing pharmacologically interesting 5-nitroimidazoles.