Visible-light-driven NHC and organophotoredox dual catalysis for the synthesis of carbonyl compounds

• Vasudevan Dhayalan

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2025, 21, 2584–2603, doi:10.3762/bjoc.21.200

• –C, C–HA bond-forming reactions [36][37]. These chiral NHC catalysts, used to access enantiopure alcohol/amine derivatives, particularly 2° and 3° alcohols/amines, are significant structural motifs in numerous drugs and natural products and have found widespread synthetic applications in medicinal

Ex-situ generation of gaseous nitriles in two-chamber glassware for facile haloacetimidate synthesis

• Nikolai B. Akselvoll,
• Jonas T. Larsen and
• Christian M. Pedersen

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2025, 21, 2465–2469, doi:10.3762/bjoc.21.188

• the trifluoroacetimidate. We therefore decided to use the two-chamber method for the synthesis of a few non-carbohydrate acetimidates 8–11 (Figure 3). Hence a series of aryl alcohols with different substituents on the aromatic ring were synthesized and isolated in generally good yields. One exception

• was the p-methoxy derivative 11 which, as expected, was more reactive and hence more difficult to purify due to decomposition on silica gel. The p-methoxybenzyl trifluoroacetimidate (9) has been shown to be an effective regent for the acid-catalyzed benzylation of alcohols [12][30]. Conclusion In

Transformation of the cyclohexane ring to the cyclopentane fragment of biologically active compounds

• Natalya Akhmetdinova,
• Ilgiz Biktagirov and
• Liliya Kh. Faizullina

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2025, 21, 2416–2446, doi:10.3762/bjoc.21.185

• 30% and a selectivity of 70% at −100 °C (Scheme 21). 2.3 Wolff rearrangement The Wolff rearrangement is the transformation of α-diazoketones into acids or their derivatives through heating, catalysis, or UV irradiation in the presence of water, alcohols, ammonia, amines, etc. The Wolff rearrangement

• contraction is demonstrated by the example of converting organoborane intermediates into alcohols, amines, and E-alkenes (Scheme 32). 4 Meinwald rearrangements of epoxides The rearrangements of oxiranes annelated to cyclohexane occupy an important place in the synthesis of cyclopentanes due to the

Enantioselective radical chemistry: a bright future ahead

• Anna C. Renner,
• Sagar S. Thorat,
• Hariharaputhiran Subramanian and
• Mukund P. Sibi

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2025, 21, 2283–2296, doi:10.3762/bjoc.21.174

• preparation of chiral β-aminoalcohols [63]. Chiral copper(I) complexes convert imidate radicals, formed transiently through energy-transfer catalysis, to oxazolines. The transformation includes a regioselective and enantioselective HAT process. Upon blue LED irradiation, oxime imidates (derived from alcohols

Pathway economy in cyclization of 1,n-enynes

• Hezhen Han,
• Wenjie Mao,
• Bin Lin,
• Maosheng Cheng,
• Lu Yang and
• Yongxiang Liu

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2025, 21, 2260–2282, doi:10.3762/bjoc.21.173

• metal-free methodology delivered synthetically versatile iodinated homoallylic alcohols bearing piperidine motifs and pyrrolidine-fused cyclopropanes. Importantly, the reaction was carried out with high operational simplicity and environmental compatibility under mild reaction conditions. In 2024, Chan

• intermediate 150. Subsequent aromatization and ring expansion afforded benzene derivatives 151 (Scheme 31, path a). Conversely, E-configured substrates underwent gold-catalyzed alkyne activation, triggering terminal alkene 5-exo-dig cyclization to form carbocationic intermediate 152. Alcohols nucleophilically

A m-quaterphenyl probe for absolute configurational assignments of primary and secondary amines

• Yuka Takeuchi,
• Mutsumi Kobayashi,
• Yuuka Gotoh,
• Mari Ikeda,
• Yoichi Habata,
• Tomohiko Shirai and
• Shunsuke Kuwahara

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2025, 21, 2211–2219, doi:10.3762/bjoc.21.168

• Shibazono, Narashino, Chiba 275-0023, Japan Research Center for Materials with Integrated Properties, Toho University, 2-2-1 Miyama, Funabashi, Chiba 274-8510, Japan 10.3762/bjoc.21.168 Abstract We report a method for determining the absolute configurations of chiral amino alcohols, amino acid esters, and

• , empirical approaches based on 1H NMR anisotropy method have gained attention as alternative strategies for stereochemical assignment of chiral molecules. Among these, the modified Mosher method, which utilizes the ring current effects of aryl substituents, has been extensively applied to chiral alcohols [2

• for determining the absolute configurations of chiral alcohols [8][9][10][11][12][13][14], primary amines [14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32], secondary amines [33][34][35], carboxylic acids [36][37][38], sulfoxides [39], and cyanohydrins [40]. We have reported

Electrochemical cyclization of alkynes to construct five-membered nitrogen-heterocyclic rings

• Lifen Peng,
• Ting Wang,
• Zhiwen Yuan,
• Bin Li,
• Zilong Tang,
• Xirong Liu,
• Hui Li,
• Guofang Jiang,
• Chunling Zeng,
• Henry N. C. Wong and
• Xiao-Shui Peng

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2025, 21, 2173–2201, doi:10.3762/bjoc.21.166

• alkynes, amines and azides, respectively. Imidazopyridines could be obtained by electrochemical [3 + 2] cyclization of heteroarylamines. The electrochemical oxidative [3 + 2] cycloaddition of secondary propargyl alcohols was a simple and efficient access towards 1,2,3-triazoles. In this review

C2 to C6 biobased carbonyl platforms for fine chemistry

• Jingjing Jiang,
• Muhammad Noman Haider Tariq,
• Florence Popowycz,
• Yanlong Gu and
• Yves Queneau

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2025, 21, 2103–2172, doi:10.3762/bjoc.21.165

• ][80][81]. Keto acetals have been observed as by-products, such as in the work reported by Gupta investigating the acid-catalyzed reactions of DHA with various alcohols (Scheme 17) [82]. Colbran and colleagues reported the conversion of DHA to dihydroxyacetone phosphate in four steps in 27% overall

• rapidly under mild conditions. The catalyst 1 oxidizes the vicinal diols to the corresponding hydroxy ketones faster than other alcohols. Primary alcohols and 1,5-diols are oxidized to yield secondary alcohols and cyclic lactones, respectively (Scheme 30). A high chemo- and regioselectivity was observed

• toward useful biobased functional compounds or intermediates with applications in fuels, polymer chemistry and fine organic synthesis (CH activation, Piancatelli rearrangement, etc.). Conversion of furfural to alcohols, aldehydes and ketones: One of the most important transformations of furfural is its

Enantioselective desymmetrization strategy of prochiral 1,3-diols in natural product synthesis

• Lihua Wei,
• Rui Yang,
• Zhifeng Shi and
• Zhiqiang Ma

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2025, 21, 1932–1963, doi:10.3762/bjoc.21.151

• synthesis of complex molecules which are spatially crowded. Among various types of substrates for enantioselective desymmetrization, symmetrical diols, especially prochiral 1,3-diols, are often prioritized for testing, because the two primary alcohols of the products (one of them is functionalized in an

Chiral phosphoric acid-catalyzed asymmetric synthesis of helically chiral, planarly chiral and inherently chiral molecules

• Wei Liu and
• Xiaoyu Yang

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2025, 21, 1864–1889, doi:10.3762/bjoc.21.145

• synthesis of planarly chiral macrocycles via CPA-catalyzed coupling of carboxylic acids with alcohols via ynamide mediation. Kinetic resolution of substituted amido[2.2]paracyclophanes via CPA-catalyzed asymmetric electrophilic amination. Enantioselective synthesis of inherently chiral calix[4]arenes via

Photoswitches beyond azobenzene: a beginner’s guide

• Michela Marcon,
• Christoph Haag and
• Burkhard König

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2025, 21, 1808–1853, doi:10.3762/bjoc.21.143

Synthesis of chiral cyclohexane-linked bisimidazolines

• Changmeng Xi,
• Qingshan Sun and
• Jiaxi Xu

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2025, 21, 1786–1790, doi:10.3762/bjoc.21.140

• alcohols and utilized in different metal-catalyzed asymmetric organic reactions [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9]. In comparison with bisoxazoline ligands, relatively less attention has been paid to bisimidazoline ligands [10][11][12][13][14][15]. Some well investigated bisimidazoline ligands are pyridine-linked

• vicinal amino alcohols as starting materials in their synthesis. However, it is difficult to tune the electronic effects of cHBOX ligands. Chiral cyclohexane-1,2-linked bisimidazolines possess similar structural features as cHBOX ligands and their electronic effect can be tuned by the introduction of

Preparation of a furfural-derived enantioenriched vinyloxazoline building block and exploring its reactivity

• Madara Darzina,
• Anna Lielpetere and
• Aigars Jirgensons

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2025, 21, 1737–1741, doi:10.3762/bjoc.21.136

• amino alcohols derived from furfural and ʟ- or ᴅ-valinol were subjected to Torii-type ester electrosynthesis to obtain the corresponding unsaturated esters. These served as key intermediates to prepare (S)- and (R)-enantioenriched unsaturated amides by N-Alloc deprotection which induced concomitant

• trans-isomer of amide 5. Results and Discussion The protected furfuryl amino alcohols S-2d and R-2d were prepared by reductive amination of furfural (1) with ʟ- and ᴅ-valinol followed by N-protection with Alloc-Cl (Scheme 2). The amino alcohols S-2d and R-2d were then subjected to electrochemical

• competent substrate for the aza-Diels–Alder reaction in with TsNCO to give oxazolo[3,2-c]pyrimidine derivative 7 as a single diastereomer. Proposed approach for the preparation of vinyloxazoline 6. Synthesis of furfuryl amino alcohols S-2d and R-2d and their electrochemical oxidation to esters S-3d and R-3d

Continuous-flow-enabled intensification in nitration processes: a review of technological developments and practical applications over the past decade

• Feng Zhou,
• Chuansong Duanmu,
• Yanxing Li,
• Jin Li,
• Haiqing Xu,
• Pan Wang and
• Kai Zhu

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2025, 21, 1678–1699, doi:10.3762/bjoc.21.132

• classifications necessitate tailored nitrating reagent selections, giving rise to fundamentally distinct mechanistic pathways. This reactivity is exemplified by the comparative kinetic profiles: N-nitration of amines and O-nitration of alcohols – facilitated by accessible lone electron pairs – exhibit markedly

General method for the synthesis of enaminones via photocatalysis

• Paula Pérez-Ramos,
• Raquel G. Soengas and
• Humberto Rodríguez-Solla

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2025, 21, 1535–1543, doi:10.3762/bjoc.21.116

• presence of amines and CuI as catalyst, as reported by Zhang and co-workers (Scheme 1B) [32]. On the other hand, Li et al. disclosed a silver-catalyzed amination of propargyl alcohols to afford enaminones (Scheme 1C) [33]. Although these new methods provide a wide variety of enaminones, there are

Calcium waste as a catalyst in the transesterification for demanding esters: scalability perspective

• Anton N. Potorochenko and
• Konstantin S. Rodygin

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2025, 21, 1520–1527, doi:10.3762/bjoc.21.114

• acetylene production, was investigated. The catalyst was obtained by calcination of calcium carbide slag at 600 °C (CS600) and characterized by XRD and FTIR analysis. The transesterification reactions were carried out with primary alcohols, producing fatty acid alkyl esters in 51–99% yields, depending on

• the alcohols’ nature and catalyst amount (1–10 wt %). The CS600 catalyst demonstrated efficiency in the transesterification of low-molecular-weight esters, medium-chain triglycerides (C9–C12), and lactones, resulting in the corresponding methyl esters in 66–99% yields in the presence of low catalyst

• applications [62][63][64][65][66][67][68][69][70][71]; however, the amount of slag is much higher than its actual consumption. In this work, the application of a catalyst derived from carbide slag in the transesterification of soybean oil with various alcohols (11 examples) was investigated. The carbide slag

High-pressure activation for the solvent- and catalyst-free syntheses of heterocycles, pharmaceuticals and esters

• Kelsey Plasse,
• Valerie Wright,
• Guoshu Xie,
• R. Bernadett Vlocskó,
• Alexander Lazarev and
• Béla Török

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2025, 21, 1374–1387, doi:10.3762/bjoc.21.102

• ; therefore, the use of pressure resulted in a more substantial improvement in the OH acylation reaction. HHP-assisted esterification of alcohols: synthesis of fragrances Esterification is one of the most common organic reactions and there are a multitude of processes available. However, most require some

•  4, entry 5) under pressure yielded quantitative product formation. The optimized conditions allowed the extension of the protocol and a selection of alcohols was investigated. The results are illustrated in Scheme 4. For comparison, results obtained from reactions at ambient pressure are given in

• pressurization even at 80 °C. However, the reaction rate with AcOH is still much improved under high pressure, as none of the alcohols formed any product under 1 bar pressure. Scale up of the HHP-assisted reactions The above protocols were carried out at a small scale (mg to g) and thus, an effort was made to

Oxetanes: formation, reactivity and total syntheses of natural products

• Peter Gabko,
• Martin Kalník and
• Maroš Bella

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2025, 21, 1324–1373, doi:10.3762/bjoc.21.101

• alcohols 13 and a binary Al/TBAB catalyst (Scheme 5) [40]. The reaction is carried out in toluene upon mild heating, providing the bicyclic products in high to excellent yields. Both electron-rich and electron-poor phenyls as well as aliphatic chains worked well, however, increased temperature and catalyst

• homoallylic alcohols 18/19 via metal hydride atom transfer/radical polar crossover (MHAT/RPC) method (Scheme 6) [41]. This mild and high-yielding protocol displays good functional group tolerance and has a broad substrate scope, even providing access to medicinally relevant spirooxetanes. The proposed MHAT

• with alcohol C–H functionalisation, thus creating a unique synthetic strategy towards oxetane formation that avoids tedious multistep substrate preparations (Scheme 7) [42]. It can be initiated from simple, unactivated primary or secondary alcohols, tolerates various functional groups such as acetals

Recent advances in amidyl radical-mediated photocatalytic direct intermolecular hydrogen atom transfer

• Hao-Sen Wang,
• Lin Li,
• Xin Chen,
• Jian-Li Wu,
• Kai Sun,
• Xiao-Lan Chen,
• Ling-Bo Qu and
• Bing Yu

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2025, 21, 1306–1323, doi:10.3762/bjoc.21.100

• cycloalkenes and alcohols. To eliminate the need for noble metal photocatalysts in the system, Duan’s group employed 2,4,5,6-tetra-9H-carbazol-9-yl-1,3-benzenedicarbonitrile (4CzIPN) as a metal-free photocatalyst (Scheme 3) [71]. This system initiated the formation of amidyl radical 20 from HRP-3 through a

Recent advances in oxidative radical difunctionalization of N-arylacrylamides enabled by carbon radical reagents

• Jiangfei Chen,
• Yi-Lin Qu,
• Ming Yuan,
• Xiang-Mei Wu,
• Heng-Pei Jiang,
• Ying Fu and
• Shengrong Guo

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2025, 21, 1207–1271, doi:10.3762/bjoc.21.98

• -/trifluoroalkylation reagents, α-carbonyl alkyl bromides/alcohols, alkyl halides, and alkyl carboxylic acids, have been successfully applied to this transformation to afford 3-substituted indolin-2-ones. In 2013, Li’s group reported a novel DTBP(di-tert-butyl peroxide)-mediated oxidative 1,2-alkylarylation of

• -free synthetic method for 3,3-disubstituted oxindoles via 1,2-alkylarylation of activated alkenes with alcohols [4]. N-Arylacrylamides and simple alcohols were employed as substrates, proceeding through an oxidative radical cyclization mechanism. The standard reaction conditions involved the use of an

• and alcohols. Substrates with different substituents, including both electron-donating and electron-withdrawing groups, provided satisfactory yields (7a–f). However, steric hindrance significantly influenced the outcome, as ortho-substituted substrates yielded lower amounts (7c). The study also

Selective monoformylation of naphthalene-fused propellanes for methylene-alternating copolymers

• Kenichi Kato,
• Tatsuki Hiroi,
• Seina Okada,
• Shunsuke Ohtani and
• Tomoki Ogoshi

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2025, 21, 1183–1191, doi:10.3762/bjoc.21.95

• moderate flexibility at the same time. Therefore, the monoformyl products are good precursors for soft materials which show molecular-size cavities and require desymmetrized building blocks. As a proof of concept, methylene-alternating copolymers were prepared by reduction to corresponding alcohols

• interactions between the naphthalene units. The monoformyl products are reduced to corresponding alcohols, which are then reacted under Friedel–Crafts conditions. Amorphous methylene-alternating copolymers are obtained without particular macrocyclic oligomers. Due to the 3D components, the linear copolymers

• -fused propellanes simply by reduction into the corresponding alcohols followed by acid-mediated Friedel–Crafts-type reactions (Figure 2a and Figure S201 in Supporting Information File 1) [67][68]. Reduction by NaBH4 proceeded well for both monoaldehydes [4.3.3]_CHO and [3.3.3]_CHO resulting in over 90

Synthetic approach to borrelidin fragments: focus on key intermediates

• Yudhi Dwi Kurniawan,
• Zetryana Puteri Tachrim,
• Teni Ernawati,
• Faris Hermawan,
• Ima Nurasiyah and
• Muhammad Alfin Sulmantara

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2025, 21, 1135–1160, doi:10.3762/bjoc.21.91

• alcohols, 34 and ent-34, after recrystallization from hot hexane (100% ee by chiral phase HPLC, yield not reported). These alcohols were then treated with triphenylphosphine and iodine in the presence of imidazole to yield the iodides 35 and ent-35 (Scheme 2). The iodide intermediates were subsequently

Salen–scandium(III) complex-catalyzed asymmetric (3 + 2) annulation of aziridines and aldehydes

• Linqiang Wang and
• Jiaxi Xu

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2025, 21, 1087–1094, doi:10.3762/bjoc.21.86

• alcohols and aldehydes [11] and through [2 + 3] cycloaddition of azomethine ylides and carbonyl dipolarophiles [12]. Recently, the [2 + 3] annulation of aldehydes and donor–acceptor dialkyl 2-aryl-1-sulfonylaziridine-2,2-dicarboxylates, which generate azomethine ylides, has been developed for the synthesis

Recent advances in synthetic approaches for bioactive cinnamic acid derivatives

• Betty A. Kustiana,
• Galuh Widiyarti and
• Teni Ernawati

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2025, 21, 1031–1086, doi:10.3762/bjoc.21.85

• -acylation of cinnamic acid above. 2.2.1 Alcohol oxidation: Kapdi and co-workers (2019) reported Pd-colloids-catalyzed esterification via Ag2O-catalyzed alcohol oxidation. Herein, cinnamyl alcohols were oxidized to the corresponding cinnamaldehydes catalyzed by Ag2O, followed by oxidative addition to Pd via

• 153 and 154 to give the corresponding esters 44 and 152 driven by MeOH attack (Scheme 47) [87]. Hu and co-workers (2021) developed an N-doped carbon black-supported PdBi bimetallic catalyst (Pd5Bi5/NCB) for the oxidative esterification of cinnamyl alcohols via hemiacetal 156 oxidation (Scheme 48A) [88

• (2021) developed a Cr-based catalyst stabilized by a pentaerythritol-decorated Anderson-type polyoxometalate, [N(C4H9)4]3[CrMo6O18(OH)3C{(OCH2)3CH2-OH}] (cat 3), to catalyze the oxidative esterification of cinnamyl alcohols using H2O2. The reaction proceeds also via a hemiacetal intermediate 155 (Scheme

Biobased carbon dots as photoreductants – an investigation by using triarylsulfonium salts

• Valentina Benazzi,
• Arianna Bini,
• Ilaria Bertuol,
• Mariangela Novello,
• Federica Baldi,
• Matteo Hoch,
• Alvise Perosa and
• Stefano Protti

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2025, 21, 1024–1030, doi:10.3762/bjoc.21.84

• ); triarylsulfonium salts; visible light; Introduction Carbon dots (CDs) are a class of zero-dimensional carbon-based semiconducting nanoparticles bearing on the surface a wide range of functional groups, such as carboxylic acids, alcohols, and amines, that garnered significant attention in the last decade among the