Benzyl isocyanate

Chemical Properties

CLEAR COLOURLESS TO FAINTLY YELLOW LIQUID

Occurrence

benzyl isocyanate is a natural product found in Simicratea welwitschii with data available.?

Uses

Benzyl isocyanate was used to investigate the kinetics of isocyanate derivatization reaction in a continuous flow glass microfluidics chip. It was also used in a multicomponent, stereospecific synthesis of 1,3-oxazinane-2,4-diones employing an Al-salph complex (674699).

Uses

Benzyl isocyanate, is used as a protected ammonia equivalent in the stereo selective ring-opening of chiral 2,3-epoxy alcohols (from Sharpless asymmetric epoxidation). The key step in the sequence involves intramolecular cyclization of the carbamate intermediate. It is also used in a multicomponent, stereospecific synthesis of 1,3-oxazinane-2,4-diones employing an Al-salph complex.

General Description

Benzyl isocyanate inhibits the formation of benzo[a]pyrene (BP)-DNA adduct and posses chemopreventive properties.

Synthesis

The conversion of benzyl azide to benzyl isocyanate (Scheme 1) was selected as the model reaction and it was performed both under conventional conditions and under MW irradiation. Various solvents were compared at a number of temperatures thanks to the versatility of the SynthWave reactor, which provides multiple-sample racks. Experiments were performed at 90, 70 and 50 °C at 14.5 bar of CO2 pressure.

Scheme 1: Synthesis of benzyl isocyanate.
One-pot sequential synthesis of isocyanates and urea derivatives via a microwave-assisted Staudinger–aza-Wittig reaction