Phenanthridines Schmidt reaction

The conversion of the phenanthridones obtained by both Beckmann and Schmidt procedures into the parent bases is described in Section II, D. Alternatively, phenanthridines (and their 6-alkyl derivatives) can be obtained directly by a variation of the Schmidt reaction... 

Moore and Snyder121 have employed the Schmidt reaction to determine the structure of the hydrocarbon (71), which is one of the products of the self-condensation of acetophenone in polyphosphoric acid. Treatment with hydrogen bromide and dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) gives the fluorenol (72), which yields a mixture of 1-methyl-2,4,6-triphenylphenanthridine (73) and 10-methyl-6,7,9-triphenyl-phenanthridine (74) when treated with hydrazoic acid. 

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