Chloroform → Phenylmethyl 2-hydroxy-3,3-dimethyl-1-pyrrolidinecarboxylate

Participants

Reaction Conditions

Reaction Steps

In a 500 ml flask was dissolved phenylmethyl 3,3-dimethyl-2-oxo-1-pyrrolidinecarboxylate (0.0494 mol, 12.2 g) in 100 ml methanol. The mixture was cooled to −10° C. and sodium borohydride (0.247 mol, 9.35 g) was added slowly in portions with stirring, maintaining an internal temperature below −5° C. After the addition TLC (90:10 CHCl3:EtOAc) confirmed reaction was complete. The mixture was poured onto 500 ml saturated aqueous NH4Cl with crushed ice and stirred 16 hours, after which time the aqueous phase was extracted with Et2O (2×200 ml). The organics were dried over MgSO4, filtered and concentrated yielding 11.8 g (96%) of phenylmethyl 2-hydroxy-3,3-dimethyl-1-pyrrolidinecarboxylate as a clear oil which was used without further purification. LCMS (ESI+)=232 m/z ([M-OH]+). 1H NMR (400 MHz, CDCl3)— rotamers δ 7.39-7.33 (m, 5H), 5.25-5.14 (m, 2H), 4.99 and 4.92 (s, 1H), 3.61-3.38 (m, 2H), 1.97-1.91 (m, 1H), 1.62-1.56 (m, 1H), 1.12 (s, 3H), 1.02 (s, 3H).

Provenance & Evidence