Organophotocatalytic N-Demethylation of Oxycodone using Molecular Oxygen.

Organophotocatalytic N-Demethylation of Oxycodone using Molecular Oxygen. Chemistry. 2020 Jan 03;: Authors: Chen Y, Glotz G, Cantillo D, Kappe CO Abstract N -Demethylation of oxycodone is one of the key steps in synthesis of important opioid antagonists like naloxone or analgesics like nalbuphine. The reaction is typically carried out using stoichiometric amounts of toxic and corrosive reagents. Herein we present a green and scalable organophotocatalytic procedure that accomplishes the N -demethylation step using molecular oxygen as the terminal oxidant and an organic dye (rose bengal) as effective photocatalyst. Optimization of the reaction conditions under continuous flow conditions using visible-light irradiation led to an efficient, reliable and scalable process, producing noroxycodone hydrochloride in high isolated yield and purity after a simple workup. PMID: 31898822 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]
Source: Chemistry - Category: Chemistry Authors: Tags: Chemistry Source Type: research