ON THE SO-CALLED SURPRISING OBSERVATION CONCERNING SODIUM HYDRIDE BASED COMPLEX REDUCING AGENTS

Nordahl and Carlson in their published article [Acta Chem. Scand. 44 (1990) 274] questioned results obtained by us involving ZnCRASi [a Zn- and Me3SiCl-containing complex reducing agent (CRA) prepared from NaH, tert-amyl alcohol, ZnCl2 and Me3SiCl]. In the present publication it is shown that, in fact, their assertions are wrong. Moreover, it is shown that the main factors governing CRAs cannot be determined by the multivariate method used by Nordahl and Carlson. Finally, the reductions performed with the reagent proposed by Nordahl and Carlson are shown to be strongly dependent on the experimental procedure, contrary to their assertion, and less selective than those performed with CRAs.