Hydrogen sulfide reduction, aromatic nitro compounds

The Zinin reduction is also usehil for the reduction of aromatic nitro compounds to amines in the laboratory. It requires no special equipment, as is the case with catalytic hydrogenations, and is milder than reductions with iron and acid. Usually ammonium or alkah sulfides, hydrosulftdes or polysulftdes are used as the reactant with methanol or ethanol as the solvent. 

The main method, both in the laboratory and in technical practice, for the introduction of an amino group into an aromatic compound, is nitration and reduction. Reduction of nitro compounds is accomplished by (1) catalytic hydrogenation, (2) iron reduction (Bechamp method), (3) sulfide reduction, or (4) zinc reduction in an alkaline medium. 

Under suitable conditions it is possible to isolate the A-substituted hydroxylamines that are formed as intermediates in the reduction of nitro compounds. For this purpose it is essential in the reduction of aromatic nitro compounds to work with neutral or nearly neutral solutions suitable reducing agents are hydrogen and platinum oxide catalysts in glacial acetic acid,82,83 zinc dust in ammonium chloride solution,84 aluminum amalgam,85 and ammonium sulfide.86 Aliphatic nitro compounds may be reduced as their alkali salts (nitronates) by diborane in tetrahydrofuran, then giving A-alkylhydroxyl-amines 87 for instance, A-cyclohexylhydroxylamine is thus obtained from nitrocyclohexane in 53% yield. However, aliphatic nitro compounds are converted into A-alkylhydroxylamines more simply by catalytic hydrogenation in the presence of palladium-barium sulfate unlike aromatic nitro compounds, aliphatic nitro compounds require an acid medium for reduction to hydroxylamines an oxalic acid medium has proved the most suitable. 

Reduction of nitro compounds to amines is a synthetically important reaction (98) and is practiced since the birth of modern chemical industry—many aromatic amines are key intermediates in production of dyes and pesticides. However, the stoichiometric reductions using iron or alkali metal hydrogen sulfides or catalytic hydrogenations with heterogeneous catalysts leave room for improvements in selectivity, especially with reference to halonitro-derivatives. There are many homogeneous catalysts such as the rhodium carbonyls in the presence of amines or chelating diamines, or [Rus(CO)i2] in basic amine solutions that are... 

Partial reduction of aromatic polynitro compounds leads to nitro amines. The most successful reagents are the alkali metal or ammonium sulfides in aqueous alcoholIn some instances, sodium bicarbonate combined with sodium sulfide gives better results because of the formation of sodium hydrosulfide, which is believed to be the main reducing agent. Also, aqueous methanol is preferred to aqueous ethanol. Nitro compounds that are sparingly soluble in alcohol solutions may be reduced by hydrogen sulfide in pyridine solution. ... 

Manufacture of many important amino intermediates used for dyes and other purposes is usually by conversion or replacement of a substituent. For example, as already mentioned, in substituted nitro compounds, the nitro groups may be reduced with iron/hydrochloric acid, hydrogen and catalyst, or zinc in aqueous alkali. Partial reductions can be brought about with sodium sulfide. Amino groups may be introduced by replacing halogens in the aromatic ring. Another approach to amination is by attack on a substituted aromatic compound with ammonia or amines. Thus, for example, direct amination of p-chloronitrobenzene (15a) in the presence of a copper catalyst affords p-nitroaniline (15b) in almost quantitative yield l,4-dichloro-2-nitrobenzene (16) is converted in a similar way to 4-chloro-2-nitroaniline (17). Reactions of ammonia with carboxylic acids or anhydrides are carried out on an industrial scale. 

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