Hi Sally,

Definitely carry out the reaction in fume hood. 

You can just do the reaction under inert atmosphere if you think it's necessary.

I wouldn't bother with a bleach trap, but after isolating your product from the reaction mixture, bleach will destroy any cyanide hanging out in your aqueous byproduct.

Hi, you can try picoline-borane. Maybe It is a mild reagent but it is not that toxic.

Regards 

Hi Sally,

Definitely carry out the reaction in fume hood. 

You can just do the reaction under inert atmosphere if you think it's necessary.

I wouldn't bother with a bleach trap, but after isolating your product from the reaction mixture, bleach will destroy any cyanide hanging out in your aqueous byproduct.

Thanks everyone for your answers, especially Brennan and Gloria. Shaban, I had already found the MSDS and disposal files, and the MSDS is of limited use for practical laboratory techniques.

An alternative reagent can be the sodium triacetoxyborohydride. I have used this reagent for red. amination. The synthesis of this is also simple: NaBH4 + glacial acetic acid In DMA solvent.

All the best,

Gabor

The reductant has to be usable in water, and preferably under mild acid conditions..

Sally,

When we do reductive aminations using cyanoborohydride we always work in the fume hood, obviously. After the amination reaction the glycans are separated from the salts, excess fluorescent label and also cyanides by a filtration step on QM filter paper. That only works, if you don't have too much sample.

We have recently used a C18 SPE type column that binds the fluorescent label for larger scale labeling. The disadvantage there is that you end up also purifying unreacted label, which you'll have to filter out in another way.

Any cyanide containing waste product we have special waste containers for that are sent off for special disposal. But that is part of the dutch legislation system. I don't know how that would work where you are.

Does anyone have used triacetoxyborohydride in combination with the AminoLink Plus resin (life technologies/Thermo Fisher Scientific)?

Is there anything to care about when preparing Cyanoborohydride solution in NaOH (small scale) except for working in a fume hood? I always read, that Cyanoborohydride creates highly flammable gases in contact with water. 

The highly flammable gases is H2 gas. As posted by Brennan Murphy, you could do or work under an inter atmosphere (N2 or N2/H2). Hence, by eliminating the O2, H2 should be safe to handle, even under heat. I have the chance to do reactions using a glove box with an inter atmosphere, where I seal my vessels and then conduct microwave chemistry. Works just fine.