Towards energetically viable asymmetric deprotonations: selectivity at more elevated temperatures with C2-symmetric magnesium bisamides.

A novel chiral magnesium bisamide has enabled the development of effective asymmetric deprotonation protocols at substantially more elevated temperatures. This new, structurally simple, C(2)-symmetric magnesium complex displays excellent levels of asymmetric efficiency and energy reduction in the synthesis of enantioenriched enol silanes.

Emerging use of isotope ratio mass spectrometry as a tool for discrimination of 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine by synthetic route.

Drug profiling, or the ability to link batches of illicit drugs to a common source or synthetic route, has long been a goal of law enforcement agencies. Research in the past decade has explored drug profiling with isotope ratio mass spectrometry (IRMS). This type of research can be limited by the use of substances seized by police, of which the provenance is unknown. Fortunately, however, some studies in recent years have been carried out on drugs synthesized in-house and therefore of known history. In this study, 18 MDMA samples were synthesized in-house from aliquots of the same precursor by three common reductive amination routes and analyzed for 13C, 15N, and 2H isotope abundance using IRMS. For these three preparative methods, results indicate that 2H isotope abundance data is necessary for discrimination by synthetic route. Furthermore, hierarchical cluster analysis using 2H data on its own or combined with 13C and/or 15N provides a statistical means for accurate discrimination by synthetic route.

A series of [3 + 2] cycloaddition products from the reaction of rhenium oxo complexes with diphenyl ketene.

The reaction of rhenium (VII) trioxo complexes containing the ligand sets scorpionate, [HB(pz)3]ReO3 (6), [Ph-B(pz)3]ReO3 (7), and [[HC(pz)3]ReO3][ReO4] (8) and pyridine/pyridine-type ligands [(4,7-diphenyl-1,10-phen)(Br)ReO3] (12), [(4,4'-di-tert-butyl-2,2'-dipyridyl)(Cl)ReO3] (13), and [(py)2Re(Cl)O3] (4), with diphenyl ketene, has led to the isolation of six novel [3 + 2] cycloaddition products. These air-stable solids 9-11 and 15-17 are the result of [3 + 2] addition of the O=Re=O motif across the ketene C=C double bond. Five of the six [3 + 2] cycloaddition products have been structurally characterized by single-crystal X-ray diffraction and in all cases by 13C NMR and IR spectroscopies.