Alcohols, Preparation Reducing action

Numerous methods for the synthesis of salicyl alcohol exist. These involve the reduction of salicylaldehyde or of salicylic acid and its derivatives. The alcohol can be prepared in almost theoretical yield by the reduction of salicylaldehyde with sodium amalgam, sodium borohydride, or lithium aluminum hydride by catalytic hydrogenation over platinum black or Raney nickel or by hydrogenation over platinum and ferrous chloride in alcohol. The electrolytic reduction of salicylaldehyde in sodium bicarbonate solution at a mercury cathode with carbon dioxide passed into the mixture also yields saligenin. It is formed by the electrolytic reduction at lead electrodes of salicylic acids in aqueous alcoholic solution or sodium salicylate in the presence of boric acid and sodium sulfate. Salicylamide in aqueous alcohol solution acidified with acetic acid is reduced to salicyl alcohol by sodium amalgam in 63% yield. Salicyl alcohol forms along with -hydroxybenzyl alcohol by the action of formaldehyde on phenol in the presence of sodium hydroxide or calcium oxide. High yields of salicyl alcohol from phenol and formaldehyde in the presence of a molar equivalent of ether additives have been reported (60). Phenyl metaborate prepared from phenol and boric acid yields salicyl alcohol after treatment with formaldehyde and hydrolysis (61). 

Usually prepared by the action of NaCN on benzaldehyde in dilute alcohol. It is oxidized by nitric acid to benzil, and reduced by sodium amalgam to hydrobenzoin PhCHOHCHOHPh by tin amalgam and hydrochloric acid to des-oxybenzoin, PhCH2COPh and by zinc amalgam to stilbene PhCH = CHPh. It gives an oxime, phenylhydrazone and ethanoyl derivative. The a-oxime is used under the name cupron for the estimation of copper and molybdenum. 

C7H6O2 Oily liquid of aromatic odour b.p. 196°C. (t is prepared by the action of chloroform and caustic potash on phenol (the Reimer-Tiemann reaction) or by the oxidation of the glucoside salicin. It is easily reduced to salicyl alcohol or oxidized to salicylic acid. 

The present procedure was developed from those of Wallach and Freylon, based upon the general method discovered by Leuckart. a-Phenylethylamine also can be prepared satisfactorily by the reduction of acetophenone oxime with sodium and absolute alcohol or sodium amalgam, but the reagents are more expensive and the processes less convenient. The amine has been obtained by reducing acetophenone oxime electro-lytically, by reducing acetophenone phenylhydrazone with sodium amalgam and acetic acid, from a-phenylethyl bromide and hexamethylenetetramine, and by the action of methyl-magnesium iodide upon hydrobenzamide, as well as by other methods of no preparative value. 

These formulae explain the scission products of the two alkaloids and the conversion of evodiamine into rutaecarpine, and were accepted by Asahina. A partial synthesis of rutaecarpine was effected by Asahina, Irie and Ohta, who prepared the o-nitrobenzoyl derivative of 3-)3-amino-ethylindole-2-carboxylic acid, and reduced this to the corresponding amine (partial formula I), which on warming with phosphorus oxychloride in carbon tetrachloride solution furnished rutaecarpine. This synthesis was completed in 1928 by the same authors by the preparation of 3-)S-amino-ethylindole-2-carboxylic acid by the action of alcoholic potassium hydroxide on 2-keto-2 3 4 5-tetrahydro-3-carboline. An equally simple synthesis was effected almost simultaneously by Asahina, Manske and Robinson, who condensed methyl anthranilate with 2-keto-2 3 4 5-tetrahydro-3-carboline (for notation, see p. 492) by the use of phosphorus trichloride (see partial formulae II). Ohta has also synthesised rutaecarpine by heating a mixture of 2-keto-2 3 4 5-tetrahydrocarboline with isatoic anhydride at 195° for 20 minutes. 

An aluminium-mercury couple acts in the same way as zinc dust. This aluminium amalgam, prepared by the action of mercuric chloride on aluminium (preferably granulated), is also suitable for reducing substances dissolved in ether or alcohol the water which is required is slowly added drop by drop. (The method is that of H. Wislicenus.) The extent of the reduction varies according to the nitro-compound concerned, but corresponds approximately to the effect of zinc dust in a neutral medium. Consequently reduction usually does not proceed beyond the hydroxylamine stage. 

This assumption of Pauly s was confirmed by Knoop and Windaus, who found that histidine is resistant to reduction by sodium and alcohol whereas the pyrimidine rii is very unstable towards this reagent. On reducing Frankel s oxydesaminohistidine, which is obtained from histidine by the action of nitrous acid, they obtained /8-imidazole-propionic acid. This compound was identical with the synthetical product prepared from glyoxylpropionic acid, ammonia and formaldehyde — ... 

K. G. Thurnlackh and K. F. von Hayn prepared a mixed soln. of potassium chlorate and chlorite by the action of potassium hydroxide free from chlorine on a soln. of chlorine dioxide. Light was carefully excluded, and the soln. was evaporated in vacuo at 45°-50°—potassium chlorate separated out first, and after further evaporation, alcohol was added, and the clear alcoholic soln. evaporated. Needle-like crystals of potassium chlorite, KC102, were obtained which deliquesced on exposure to air. As already indicated in connection with the preparation of the acid, G. Bruni and G. Levi made the potassium chlorite by reducing a soln. of potassium chlorate with oxalic acid and A. Reychler, sodium chlorite, by the action of chlorine dioxide on a soln. of sodium peroxide. Sodium chlorite, NaClQ2, can be also made by double decomposition by treating a soln. of barium chlorite with sodium sulphate and evaporating the clear soln. in vacuo. 

Xanthydrol was first prepared by reducing xanthone by means of zinc dust in the presence of boiling alcoholic sodium hydroxide 1 it was later shown by Fosse that it could be conveniently prepared by the action of a low percentage sodium amalgam upon xanthone in alcohol. The method is based upon the directions of Fosse.2... 

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