Water → 4-Benzylmorpholine-2-carbonitrile

Temperature

-5 °C

A one-litre reactor with mechanical stirring, cooled by an ice bath, was charged with N-benzylethanolamine (172.2 g; 1 equiv. available from Aldrich Chemical Company). 2-Chloroacrylonitrile (100 g; 1 equiv. available from Aldrich Chemical Company) was added dropwise over 2 minutes. The temperature was maintained between 23° C. and 29° C. by means of the ice bath and subsequently a water bath at 15° C. N-Benzylethanolamine was still detected on TLC after 4.5 h stirring. After one night stirring at room temperature (water bath), no N-benzylethanolamine was detectable by 1H NMR. The mixture was dissolved in tetrahydrofuran and transferred to a 2 L reactor cooled to −5° C. by ice/NaCl bath. The total volume of tetrahydrofuran was 1.35 L. Potassium tert-butoxide (148 g; 1.1 equiv.) was added by portions in 1 hour, keeping the reaction temperature at 0±2° C. After 1 hour post-stirring at 0° C., the mixture was quenched with saturated NaHCO3 (500 mL). The aqueous layer was extracted with diethyl ether (500 mL). Organic layers were dried on MgSO4 and evaporated to dryness. The title compound (149.8 g; 65%) was obtained after percolation of the 250 g dry residue on 1 kg of SiO2, eluting with the following gradient:

1. temperatureA one-litre reactor with mechanical stirring, cooled by an ice bath
2. customtransferred to a 2 L reactor
3. customat 0±2° C
4. stirringAfter 1 hour post-stirring at 0° C.
5. customthe mixture was quenched with saturated NaHCO3 (500 mL)
6. extractionThe aqueous layer was extracted with diethyl ether (500 mL)
7. customOrganic layers were dried on MgSO4
8. customevaporated to dryness

ORD record

ord-b07505fc29e2486886ea90221071d06f

Source dataset

uspto-grants-2008_06

DOI

10.6084/m9.figshare.5104873.v1

Patent number

US07384941B2