Titanium compounds aliphatic nitro compound reduction

Titanium(II) reagents have also been used to reduce aliphatic nitro compounds to amines halo, cyano and ester groups are not reduced. Sodium borohydride, in the presence of catalytic amounts of nickel(II) chloride, reduces a variety of aliphatic nitro compounds to amines. Nickel boride (Ni2B) is an active catalyst for reductions of primary, secondary and tertiary nitro aliphatic compounds to amines. The reduction of nitrocyclohexane (45) yields cyclohexylamine (47) as well as small amounts of dicyclohexylamine (49), the latter being formed via reaction of intermediates (46) and (48 equation 28). 

Aliphatic nitro compounds serve as good acyl anion equivalents. After electrophilic alkylation at the a-carbon atom, they can be converted into carbonyl compounds by the Nef reaction or by reductive hydrolysis with titanium(III) chloride. The a-nitro carbanions serve as excellent donors in Michael addition reactions with a, -unsaturated systems and therefore the sequence of Michael addition followed by reductive hydrolysis of the nitro group provides a good route to 1,4-dicarbonyl compounds. ds-Jasmone, for example, was readily obtained by using this strategy (1.111). 

The photoreduction of aromatic nitro compounds to the amino compounds can be carried out on the surface of semiconductor particles such as titanium oxide1 with H-atom donors (equation 1). At a shorter duration of the photoinduced reduction of p-nitroacetophenone, the hydroxylamine intermediate can be obtained in about 30% yield. The reaction mechanism proposed is based on the photoexcitation of TiC>2 to generate an electron and a positive hole (equations 2 and 3). Aliphatic nitro compounds such as 12-nitrododecanoic acid can be reduced to 12-amino dodecanoic acid in 90% yield by this method. 

Oxime deoxygenation by titanium(III) chloride spurred investigation of this agent for reducing nitro aliphatics the method is applicable to other nitro compounds. - The active species are thought to be ArN02H and a hydrolyzed form of titanium(II). The reaction conditions have been optimized for the reduction of aromatic and even heteroaromatic nitro compounds. ... 

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