A Quantitative Assay of Sodium Triacetoxyborohydride
Published:7 August 2019
DOI: 10.1021/acs.oprd.9b00215
Michael J. Zacuto*, Joseph Perona, Robert Dunn
Abstract
Sodium triacetoxyborohydride (STAB) is a common reducing agent with potency that degrades over time and is not uniformly assigned. A simple assay based on an aldehyde reduction has been developed to determine the active borohydride content of this reagent. The HPLC assay yield of a salicylaldehyde reduction has been shown to accurately determine this potency and has been validated against the H2 evolution method as well as yields obtained from a reductive amination. The use of these assay data to adjust the STAB charge as well to optimize a reductive amination has been demonstrated.