Lithium aluminum hydride, reducing amides

Lithium aluminum hydride reduces amides and nitriles to amines, providing some of the best synthetic routes to amines (Sections 19-19 and 19-20B). Primary amides and nitriles are reduced to primary amines. Secondary amides are reduced to secondary amines, and tertiary amides are reduced to tertiary amines. 

Lithium aluminum hydride reduces amides to amines regardless of the degree of substitution of the amide. Primary, secondary, and tertiary amides yield primary, secondary, and tertiary amines, respectively. 

Reduction of amides (Section 22.9) Lithium aluminum hydride reduces the carbonyl group of an amide to a methylene group. Primary, secondary, or tertiary amines may be prepared by proper choice of the starting amide. R and R may be either alkyl or aryl. 

Reactions of Esters Esters are much more stable than acid chlorides and anhydrides. For example, most esters do not react with water under neutral conditions. They hydrolyze under acidic or basic conditions, however, and an amine can displace the alkoxyl group to form an amide. Lithium aluminum hydride reduces esters to primary alcohols, and Grignard and organolithium reagents add twice to give alcohols (after hydrolysis). 

Synthesis by high-dilution techniques requires slow admixture of reagents ( 8-24 hrs) or very large volumes of solvents 100 1/mmol). Fast reactions can also be carried out in suitable flow cells (J.L. Dye, 1973). High dilution conditions have been used in the dilactam formation from l,8-diamino-3,6-dioxaoctane and 3,6-dioxaoctanedioyl dichloride in benzene. The amide groups were reduced with lithium aluminum hydride, and a second cyclization with the same dichloride was then carried out. The new bicyclic compound was reduced with diborane. This ligand envelops metal ions completely and is therefore called a cryptand (B. Dietrich, 1969). 

AletalHydrides. Metal hydrides can sometimes be used to prepare amines by reduction of various functional groups, but they are seldom the preferred method. Most metal hydrides do not reduce nitro compounds at all (64), although aUphatic nitro compounds can be reduced to amines with lithium aluminum hydride. When aromatic amines are reduced with this reagent, a2o compounds are produced. Nitriles, on the other hand, can be reduced to amines with lithium aluminum hydride or sodium borohydride under certain conditions. Other functional groups which can be reduced to amines using metal hydrides include amides, oximes, isocyanates, isothiocyanates, and a2ides (64). 

In most other reactions the azolecarboxylic acids and their derivatives behave as expected (cf. Scheme 52) (37CB2309), although some acid chlorides can be obtained only as hydrochlorides. Thus imidazolecarboxylic acids show the normal reactions they can be converted into hydrazides, acid halides, amides and esters, and reduced by lithium aluminum hydride to alcohols (70AHC(12)103). Again, thiazole- and isothiazole-carboxylic acid derivatives show the normal range of reactions. 

Properly substituted isoxazolecarboxylic acids can be converted into esters, acid halides, amides and hydrazides, and reduced by lithium aluminum hydride to alcohols. For example, 3-methoxyisoxazole-5-carboxylic acid (212) reacted with thionyl chloride in DMF to give the acid chloride (213) (74ACS(B)636). Ethyl 3-ethyl-5-methylisoxazole-4-carboxylate (214) was reduced with LAH to give 3-ethyl-4-hydroxymethyl-5-methylisoxazole (215) (7308(53)70). 

Lithium aluminum hydride (LiAlH4) is the most powerful of the hydride reagents. It reduces acid chlorides, esters, lactones, acids, anhydrides, aldehydes, ketones and epoxides to alcohols amides, nitriles, imines and oximes to amines primary and secondary alkyl halides and toluenesulfonates to... 

Acylation of norephedrine (56) with the acid chloride from benzoylglycolic acid leads to the amide (57), Reduction with lithium aluminum hydride serves both to reduce the amide to the amine and to remove the protecting group by reduction (58), Cyclization by means of sulfuric acid (probably via the benzylic carbonium ion) affords phenmetrazine (59), In a related process, alkylation of ephedrine itself (60) with ethylene oxide gives the diol, 61, (The secondary nature of the amine in 60 eliminates the complication of dialkylation and thus the need to go through the amide.) Cyclization as above affords phendimetra-zine (62), - Both these agents show activity related to the parent acyclic molecule that is, the agents are CNS stimulants... 

In this series, too, replacement of the N-methyl by a group such as cyclopropylmethyl leads to a compound with reduced abuse potential by virtue of mixed agonist-antagonist action. To accomplish this, reduction of 24 followed by reaction with tertiary butylmagnesium chloride gives the tertiary carbinol 27. The N-methyl group is then removed by the classic von Braun procedure. Thus, reaction with cyanogen bromide leads to the N-cyano derivative (28) hydrolysis affords the secondary amine 29. (One of the more efficient demethylation procedures, such as reaction with ethyl chloroformate would presumably be used today.) Acylation with cyclopropylcarbonyl chloride then leads to the amide 30. Reduction with lithium aluminum hydride (31) followed by demethylation of the phenolic ether affords buprenorphine (32).9... 

A similar sequence starting with the acylation product (76) from metachlorophenylacetonitrile gives the halogenated tricyclic ketone 83. Condensation of that intermediate with ethyl bromoacetate in the presence of zinc (Reformatsky reaction) gives the hydroxyester 84. This product is then in turn dehydrated under acid conditions (85), saponified to the corresponding acid (86), and converted to the dimethyl-amide (87) by way of the acid chloride. The amide function is then reduced to the amine (88) with lithium aluminum hydride catalytic hydrogenation of the exocyclic double bond completes the synthesis of closiramine (89). This compound also exhibits antihistaminic activity. 

The stoichiometry determines the ratios of lithium aluminum hydride to other compounds to be reduced. Esters or tertiary amides treated with one hydride equivalent (one fourth of a molecule) of lithium aluminum hydride are reduced to the stage of aldehydes (or their nitrogen analogs). In order to reduce an ester to the corresponding alcohol, two hydride equivalents, i.e. 0.5 mol of lithium aluminum hydride, is needed since, after the reduction of the carbonyl, hydrogenolysis requires one more hydride equivalent. 

Amides containing nitro groups are reduced to diamino compounds with alane. A, A -Dimethyl-p-nitrobenzamide, on reduction with lithium aluminum hydride in the presence of sulfuric acid in tetrahydrofuran, gave 98% yield of dimethyl-p-aminobenzylamine [1117]. 

Amides of keto acids were reduced to amides of hydroxy acids biochemically using Saccharomyces cerevisiae to give optically pure products [7059]. Refluxing with lithium aluminum hydride in ether for 6 hours reduced both the ketonic and the amidic carbonyl in A -methyl-5-phenyl-5-oxopentanamide and gave 82% yield of 5-methylamino-l-phenylpentanol [1134]. 

Lithium hydroxide hydrolysis of the ester of pyrrolo[l,2-l7][l,2,5]benzothia-diazepine 5,5-dioxide 346 afforded the acid, subsequently reduced with lithium aluminum hydride-aluminum chloride to alcohol 348 (Scheme 73, Section 4.2 (2006JMC5840)). Pyrrolo[l,2- 7][l,2,5]benzothiadiazepine acid 347 gives easy access to a variety of esters and amides 407, while treatment with TFAA produces fused lactam 408 (Scheme 85 (1996FES425)). 

---