Nitro compounds reduction with aluminum amalgam

Aluminum. Reductions with aluminum are not commonly found, however, I have included the preparation of the amalgam. Aluminum can be used to reduce aromatic nitro compounds (Org, Syn., 52, 77(1972). 

Reductions with aluminum are carried out almost exclusively with aluminum amalgam. This is prepared by immersing strips of a thin aluminum foil in a 2% aqueous solution of mercuric chloride for 15-60 seconds, decanting the solution, rinsing the strips with absolute ethanol, then with ether, and cutting them with scissors into pieces of approximately 1 cm [141,142]. In aqueous and non-polar solvents aluminum amalgam reduces cumulative double bonds [143], ketones to pinacols [144], halogen compounds [145], nitro compounds [146, 147], azo compounds [148], azides [149], oximes [150] and quinones [151], and cleaves sulfones [141, 152, 153] and phenylhydrazones [154] (Procedure 30, p. 212). 

The indolyl nitro compound (98) was converted to the corresponding nitrile oxide, which cyclized to afford an inseparable mixture of isoxazolidines (99) and (100 Scheme 2S).46 These were acetylated and the THP group replaced by a mesyl group at which point the desired 3-isomer could be separated. Elimination via a selenide intermediate provided the alkenylisoxazoline (101), which was converted to an isoxazolinium salt and reduced with LAH to give an N-methylisoxazolidine. Reductive cleavage with aluminum amalgam provided (+)-paliclavine. 

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. 

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