Trimethylsilylacetonitrile (TMSAN)

Introduction

Trimethylsilylacetonitrile (TMSAN) is a popular commercial reagent that has been used in the synthesis of several useful synthetic building blocks. TMSAN is usually used as a nucleophile, mainly in additions to a carbonyl group, [¹] in order to obtain cyanomethylated adducts, or in nucleophilic substitution reactions, for example in the preparation of functionalized cyclopropanes. [²]

Scheme 1

References

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