Hunsdiecker, Heinz

Heinz and Clare Hunsdiecker converted Borodin s synthesis into a general method, the Hunsdiecker or Hunsdiecker-Borodin reaction. Borodin was also an accomplished composer and is now best known for his musical masterpiece, opera Prince Egor. He kept a piano outside his laboratory. 

Hunsdiecker, H. Hunsdiecker, C. Ber. Dtsch. Chem. Ges. 1942, 75, 291. Clare Hunsdiecker was the only woman to give a name reaction in this book. 1 hope there will be many more in future editions. Clare Hunsdiecker was born in 1903 and educated in Cologne. She developed the bromination of silver carboxylate alongside her husband, Heinz. 

Heinz and Clare Hunsdiecker found that a carboxylic acid can be decarboxylated if a heavy metal salt of the carboxylic acid is heated with bromine or iodine. The product is an alkyl halide with one less carbon atom... 

Heinz (1904-1981) and Clare (1903-1995) Hunsdiecker were both bom in Germany, Heinz in Cologne and Clare in Kiel. They both received Ph.D.s from the University of Cologne and spent their careers working in a private laboratory in Cologne. 

The first practical synthesis of the cyclopentenone was published in 1942 by Heinz Hunsdiecker. [88] In case of (Z)-jasmone, leaf alcohol, which was obtained from Japanese peppermint oil, served again as starting material. The central synthetic building block is a 1,4-diketone, which in aqueous alkali undergoes an intramolecular aldol condensation to close the five-membered ring the desired product is then obtained by hydrolysis and decarboxylation. 

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