Acetate → 4-Benzyl-2,2-dimethylmorpholine

Participants

Reaction Steps

Add 2-[benzyl-(2-methyl-allyl)-amino]-ethanol (13.0 g, 63.2 mmol) to a slurry of mercury (It) acetate (20.7 g, 65.0 mmol) in water (45 mL) and THF (45 mL). After 3 h, treat the mixture with NaOH (25 mL, 2.5 M aqueous, 125 mmol) followed by NaBH4 (2.72 g, 71.9 mmol). After 19 h, decant the mixture away from the metallic mercury and add to a separatory funnel with tert-butyl methyl ether (250 mL). Separate the organic solution, wash with water (250 mL), filter through a silica plug, and concentrate. Purify the residue by flash chromatography using a gradient from 5% to 10% tert-butyl methyl ether in CH2Cl2. Collect and concentrate the fractions containing product then dissolve the residue in hexanes (100 mL). Filter the solution through Celite® to remove metallic mercury and then concentrate the filtrate to give the title compound (7.01 g, 54%) as a colorless liquid. 1H NMR (DMSO-d6, 400 MHz) δ 7.20-7.40 (5H, m), 3.60 (2H, m), 3.42 (2H, s), 2.29 (2H, m), 2.10 (2H, s), 1.14 (6H, s).

Provenance & Evidence