Magnesium

Name Reactions

Recent Literature

An operationally simple and very efficient Reformatsky reaction of aldehydes has been carried out in THF in the presence of low valent iron or copper which were prepared in situ employing a bimetal redox strategy through reduction of Fe(III) or Cu(II) salts with magnesium.
A. Chattopadhyay, A. Kr. Dubey, J. Org. Chem., 2007, 72, 9357-9359.

An intermolecular pinacol coupling of aromatic or aliphatic carbonyl compounds catalyzed by a complex of samarium diiodide (SmI₂) with tetraglyme in the presence of Me₂SiCl₂ and Mg is described. High diastereoselectivity has been achieved in reactions with aliphatic and aromatic aldehydes. De values of up to 99% have been achieved in intramolecular pinacol coupling reactions.
H. C. Aspinall, N. Greeves, C. Valla, Org. Lett., 2005, 7, 1919-1922.

Rieke Ni generated in situ was able to promote the pinacol coupling of various carbonyls efficiently. Another catalytically effective, cheaper and more convenient NiCl₂(Cat.)/Mg/TMSCl system was designed and developed further successfully. Single-electron transfer (SET) mechanisms for the coupling reactions and the DL/meso diastereoselectivity were also explained.
L. Shi, C.-A. Fan, Y.-Q. Tu, M. Wang, F.-M. Zhang, Tetrahedron, 2004, 60, 2851-2855.

Magnesium in methanol is an effective reagent for the chemoselective reduction of ozonides and other peroxides. Mg/MeOH is significantly more reactive than Me₂S or PPh₃ and somewhat more reactive than Zn/HOAc.
P. Dai, P. H. Dussault, T. K. Trullinger, J. Org. Chem., 2004, 69, 2851-2852.

Mercury(II) chloride efficiently activates magnesium metal to induce a desulfonylative trifluoromethylation process. The new reductive trifluoromethylation provides an alternative method for efficient trifluoromethylation of non-enolizable or enolizable aldehydes with readily available phenyl trifluoromethyl sulfone reagent.
Y. Zhao, J. Zhu, C. Ni, J. Hu, Synthesis, 2010, 1899-1904

An operationally simple cross-coupling reaction between aryl halides and alkyl halides with high selectivity utilizes CoCl₂/Me₄-DACH as a catalyst system. The underlying domino process exhibits high sustainability as it obviates the need for the pre-formation and handling of stoichiometric amounts of hazardous Grignard compounds.
W. M. Czaplik, M. Mayer, A. J. von Wangelin, Synlett, 2009, 2931-2934.

A low-valent titanium generated in situ from Ti(O-i-Pr)₄, Me₃SiCl, and Mg powder in THF reacted with a broad range of sulfonamides in a reductive bond cleaving pathway to provide the corresponding amines, hydrocarbons and thiols. The reagent could also cleave sulfonates to the corresponding alcohols.
N. Shohji, T. Kawaji, S. Okamoto, Org. Lett., 2011, 13, 2626-2629.