Both Sodium borohydride and Triethylsilane are being used as reducing agents but in most of the published papers, they used either one of them.
Now, I have in the reaction NaBH4 and it works but too slow, so I would like to evaporate the solvent and add Triethylsilane in the presence of TFA but I am not sure if the Sodium borohydride will react with triethylsilane.
Dear Ahmed,
On occasion we have used both reducers and there has been no problem, so I assume that they do not interact with each other. However, I would try to use a stronger reducing agent, like LiAlH4, instead of a mix...
Best,
Fran
Francisco Manuel Marquez Thank you so much Prof. for your reply.
I totally agree with you that LiAlH4 is a strong reducing agent, and that will also reduce other groups but NaBH4 or Triethysilane are more selective.
I came across to some papers mentioning that silanes are used as reducing agents. Therefore I don't think TES reacts with SBH.
Dear Ahmed Amin many thanks for sharing this interesting chemical problem on RG. To the best of my nowledge, the presence of both sodium borohydride and triethylsilane in the same reaction mixture should present no major problem. Both compounds are hydrides and both are reducing agents. In order to make sure that the remaining NaBH4 doesn't disturb any further reactions, you can evaoporate your reaction mixture to dryness and extract the residue with diethyl ether. Sodium borohydride has a very low solubility in diethyl ether (0.02 g/100 ml), so that it should stay behind after the extraction. In contrast, LiAlH4 has a good solubility in diethyl ether. Thus you can use the extract for further experiments with either triethylsilane or LiAlH4.
Good luck with your work and best wishes, Frank Edelmann
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