Boron chemistry creates better reagents

Edited by the Laboratorytalk editorial team Jun 20, 2005

Powerful, air-stable and selective reducing agents of lithium aminoborohydride offer safer alternative to the widely used lithium aluminium hydride for chemical reductions

Aldrich, a division of Sigma-Aldrich, has produced and licenced a new range of air-stable reducing agents for use in chemical synthesis.

The lithium aminoborohydride (Lab) reagents were developed by Bakthan Singaram and licenced to Aldrich by the University of California, Santa Cruz.

These highly reactive, yet air-stable reagents used for reduction and amination, offer an attractive and safer alternative to the widely used lithium aluminium hydride (LiAlH4), says the company.

Aldrich has leveraged its strength in boron chemistry to develop and commercialise Singaram's technology.

Chris Hewitt, director of business development for chemistry at Sigma-Aldrich, said: "We are pleased to be able to work with Professor Singaram to advance science by making these powerful new reagents available for chemical synthesis.

"Lab reagents extend the toolbox for C-N bond formation while offering the advantages of safety, ease of handling, and simple work-up procedures in typical reductions.

"These properties will enable scientists who may be reluctant to use LiAlH4 and other reagents to routinely perform chemical reductions in high yields and without difficulty".

Professor Singaram noted: "In addition to showing comparable reactivity to LiAlH4, Lab reagents are safe and do not liberate hydrogen when quenched with water.

"In undergraduate teaching laboratories, transformations that would seldom be attempted to avoid the use of LAH or borane, such as the reduction of tertiary amides or esters, may become routine experiments with the use of Lab.

In academic and industrial research laboratories, the short reaction time and simple work-up procedure makes these new reagents attractive alternatives to LiAlH4 or super hydride reductions.".