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Synlett 2002(11): 1935-1936
DOI: 10.1055/s-2002-34882
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© Georg Thieme Verlag Stuttgart · New York

Cerium(III) Chloride Heptahydrate: CeCl3·7H2O

Ravula Satheesh Babu*
460 Clark Hall, Department of Chemistry, West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV-26506, USA
Fax: +1(130)42934909; e-Mail: satheeshbabur@hotmail.com;
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Publication History

Publication Date:
21 October 2002 (online)

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Introduction

Few areas of synthetic chemistry have witnessed a growth as explosive as that brought about by the application of lanthanide reagents to organic synthesis. Cerium(III) chloride heptahydrate [1] is a commercially available lanthanide reagent which is water tolerant, non-toxic, easy to handle, inexpensive and can be used without further purification.

Luche [2] introduced this reagent in 1978 for the selective 1,2 reduction of enones. Since the preparation of organocerium compounds by Imamoto and co-workers [3] in early 1980’s these are now widely applied as the reagent of choice to facilitate nucleophilic addition reactions. Recently, Bartoli and co-workers [4] demonstrated the reactivity of CeCl3·7H2O in combination with NaI for several organic transformations.