Molecules: You'd better learn to live with them.
Phosgene is a very useful molecule, but it's often not the best for the situation, and it has the unfortunate side effect of being a gas. A war gas.
Carbonyl diimidazole isn't exactly a pussycat; by nature, it has to be very reactive. At least it's not a gas. It's a useful phosgene alternative that acts very much like an acyl chloride. It finds some use in peptide synthesis, along with various other spheres of organic chemistry.
Comments
Is this structure correct? It's difficult to generate imidazole C-anion...
Posted by: AS | April 20, 2007 11:56 PM
Fixed, thanks.
Posted by: Molecule of the Day | April 21, 2007 2:10 AM
Its always worth trying this reagent if you have a difficult amide coupling; I know of two projects that were saved by CDI.
Posted by: Handles | April 22, 2007 6:51 PM