Potassium Cyanide → HCID 18374266, compound

Participants

Reaction Steps

Under an atmosphere of nitrogen and with stirring, a solution of 0.596 g of ethyl 6-methylsulfonyl-2-trifluoromethylpyridin-3-ylcarboxylate in 5 ml of dimethylformamide is treated with 160 mg of solid potassium cyanide and a spatula tipful of 18-crown-6, and the mixture is heated at 80° C. for 3 hours. The mixture is cooled overnight, and the next day another 30 mg of potassium cyanide are added and the mixture is heated further until the starting material has disappeared (approximately 2 hours). The mixture is then cooled, added to ice-water and extracted with ethyl acetate. The extracts are washed with water, dried, evaporated and freed from traces of dimethylformamide under high vacuum at approximately 40° C. This gives 480 mg (yield virtually quantitative) of ethyl 6-cyano-2-trifluoromethylpyridin-3-ylcarboxylate in the form of an oil which slowly solidifies. 1H NMR (CDCl3, ppm): 8.29 (1H,d); 7.97 (1H,d); 4.48 (2H, d); 1.43 (3H,t).

Provenance & Evidence