N,N-DIETHYLANILINE-CENTER-DOT-BORANE, AN EFFICIENT REDUCING AGENT FORREDUCTION OF REPRESENTATIVE FUNCTIONAL-GROUPS

N,N-Diethylaniline . borane (DEANB), a thermally stable, commercially available, amine . borane reagent, reduces a variety of functional gro ups, such as aldehydes, ketones, carboxylic acids tertiary amides, and lactams in excellent yields. It also reduces Schiff bases to the corr esponding amines in very good yields. Besides these reducing propertie s, it readily hydroborates 1-octene to provide the trialkylborane whic h in turn on alkaline peroxide oxidation furnished the 1-octanol in ex cellent yield and usual regioselectivity. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Lt d.