Mg/Triethylammonium Formate: A Useful System for Reductive Dimerization of Araldehydes into Pinacols;Nitroarenes into Azoarenes and Azoarenes into Hydrazoarenes

Studies are reported which describes the effectiveness of triethylammonium formate in the presence of magnesium for the efficient intermolecular pinacol coupling using MeOH as solvent. Various aromatic carbonyls underwent smooth reductive coupling to give the corresponding 1,2-diols. A series of azo compounds were obtained by the reductive coupling of nitroaromatics while azo compounds were reduced to the corresponding hydrazoarenes by this system. There was no adverse effect on the other reducible and hydrogenolysable groups such as ether linkage, hydroxy and halogens. The reactions are clean, high yielding and inexpensive. All the reactions proceeded smoothly at ambient temperature