Hydrochloric Acid → Ethyl 4,4-difluoro-3-hydroxy-pentanoate

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Reaction Conditions

Reaction Steps

Ethyl 4,4-difluoro-3-oxo-pentanoate (12.4 g, 0.068 mmol) was dissolved in toluene (100 ml) and cooled to 0° C. Sodium borohydride (3.12 g, 0.083 g) was added portionwise, and the mixture was allowed to reach room temperature overnight with stirring. The mixture was then cooled to 0° C. and acidified with 1 m HCl. The phases were separated, the aqueous phase was extracted two times with ethyl acetate, the combined organic phases were dried over magnesium sulfate and the solvent was removed under reduced pressure. The residue was dissolved in a minimum amount of methanol, the resulting solution was evaporated to dryness under reduced pressure to yield 8.76 g of a residue (0.048 mol, 70%) that were used directly in the next step.

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