Facile one-pot reduction of β-nitrostyrenes to phenethylamines using sodium borohydride and copper(II) chloride

• Laura D’Andrea and
• Simon Jademyr

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2025, 21, 39–46, doi:10.3762/bjoc.21.4

• substituted β-nitrostyrenes. This one-pot procedure allows the quick isolation of substituted β-nitrostyrene scaffolds with 62–83% yield under mild conditions, without the need for special precautions, inert atmosphere, and time-consuming purification techniques. Keywords: 2C-X; CuCl2; NaBH4; β-nitrostyrene

• -nitrostyrene (4a), precursor of most of the hallucinogenic 2C-X family (Table 1). This method was also tested on other types of scaffolds to investigate its potential general applications and effects on other substituents. As sodium borohydride per se does not reduce ester nor nitro functionalities [15][16][17