PrimoPyro (Hive Prodigy)
03-01-02 16:02
No 275499
      Aromatic Ester Hydrogenation --> Aromatic Ether?  Bookmark   

Can you use catalytic hydrogenation to reduce an ester of a carboxylic acid and a phenol to an alkyl ether?

Like say reducing phenyl acetate to ethoxybenzene, or even more applicable, phenyl formate to methoxybenzene.

If one had a 2,5-dihydroxy-nitrostyrene he wanted to play with, could he form the diformate diester on the hydroxies, and catalytically hydrogenate the fuck out of the molecule to reduce both formyl groups and the nitroalkene to 2,5-dimethoxy-phenethylamine?

Just wondering, thanks.....

                                                   PrimoPyro

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    Rhodium
(Chief Bee)
03-01-02 18:25
No 275555
      Re: Aromatic Ester Hydrogenation --> Aromatic Ether?  Bookmark   

The intermediate between a phenyl formate and a methoxybenzene is the phenolic hemiacetal of formaldehyde. I would expect that to hydrolyze too fast for an ether to form.
 
 
 
 
    PrimoPyro
(Hive Prodigy)
03-01-02 18:56
No 275571
      Re: Aromatic Ester Hydrogenation --> Aromatic Ether?  Bookmark   

Yeah, me too, now that you put it that way.

Damn, and I thought I had found a cool shortcut. laugh

Im really getting interested in the possibility of CTH with Urushibara Nickel. You know I didn't know wtf CTH was until a few people started talking about it in threads recently, and I was like wtf? So I searched for it on your website, and behold, know I have learned something wonderful that I didn't know about before. smile

                                                   PrimoPyro

Wir pumpen..... (Klatschen) Sie oben!