Hydrodecyanation of Secondary Alkyl Nitriles and Malononitriles to Alkanes using DiMeImd-BH3

J Org Chem. 2020 May 1;85(9):6137-6142. doi: 10.1021/acs.joc.0c00105. Epub 2020 Apr 10.

Abstract

The decyanation of secondary aliphatic nitriles and the 2-fold decyanation of malononitriles leading to alkanes in the presence of 1,3-dimethylimidazol-2-ylidene borane (diMeImd-BH3) are reported. These reactions proceed via a radical mechanism that involves the addition of a borane radical to the nitrile to form an iminyl radical, followed by cleavage of a carbon-carbon bond. Theoretical calculations suggest that the β-cleavage of these iminyl radicals, which affords NHC-BH2CN and the corresponding alkyl radicals, is the rate-determining step in this reaction.