NICKEL-ALUMINUM ALLOY AS A REDUCING AGENT

The purpose of this review is to illustrate the many applications of nickel-aluminum alloy (but not of Rayney catalyst per se) as a reductant that have been reported since 1937. It is shown that nickel-aluminum alloy reductions are especially convenient to perform. Experimentally, the alloy need only be added to an alkaline solution of the substance to be reduced in most cases. Workup is accomplished by filtering to remove the spongy nickel and recovering the product from the filtrate. The catalyst does not have to be prepared beforehand, and special apparatus is not required. Since both the catalytic surface and the ultimate reducing agent are generated in situ, closely similar results can be expected from one replicate run to another.