Acetic Acid → 4-(Hydroxymethyl)quinoline

Participants

Reaction Steps

To a stirred solution of 10 g of 4-quinolinecarboxaldehyde in 400 ml of absolute ethanol at room temperature is added 2.4 g of sodium borohydride. After 45 minutes, 20 ml of water is added and the reaction mixture is stirred for an additional 20 minutes. Acetic acid (20 ml) is added slowly. The reaction mixture is evaporated to a small volume and partitioned between water and methylene chloride. The organic layer is washed with saturated potassium carbonate, saturated sodium chloride solution, dried over sodium sulfate and evaporated to dryness. The residue is purified by chromatography on silica gel using methanol/methylene chloride (1:10) as eluent to yield 4-hydroxymethylquinoline; Rf =0.59.

Provenance & Evidence