Lithium borohydride aliphatic aldehydes

The benzotriazole derivatives 101 (R1 = alkyl) formed from aliphatic aldehydes, ben-zotriazole and primary aromatic amines are reduced by lithium aluminium hydride or sodium borohydride to secondary amines 102, while Grignard reagents yield compounds of type 103116. The reaction has been used for the side-chain alkylation of 2-aminopyridine (equation 42) (direct alkylation occurs predominantly at the ring nitrogen atom). 

Similarly, reduction of both aromatic and aliphatic aldehydes and ketones where there is a chlorine (Cl) or bromine (Br) present elsewhere in the carbonyl-containing compound succeeds with sodium borohydride (NaBH,) and, occasionally, with lithium aluminum hydride (LiAIH,) at low temperatures. Catalytic reduction frequently leads to hydrogenolysis of the halogen, producing the halogen-free alcohol. 

The easily prepared, stable solid reagent diphenylamine-borane (Ph2NH BH8) has been shown to be more reactive than aliphatic amine-boranes and almost as reactive as borane-THF for the reduction of ketones acids are also reduced to alcohols. Polyethylene glycols (PEG) catalyse the reduction of ketones by sodium borohydride under phase-transfer (PT) conditions, for example in solid-liquid PT with PEG as solvent. The solid zinc borohydride-dimethylformamide complex reduces aldehydes and ketones to alcohols, but only one hydrogen atom from each tetrahydridoborate unit is utilized. The different rates of reduction of various classes of ketone (saturated aliphatic faster than aromatic, and a -unsaturated very slow) suggest a possible selectivity between ketones. The corresponding cadmium complex, prepared in situ, reacts similarly. Lithium methylborohydride, LiMeBHj, prepared as shown in equation (1), where... 

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