Catalytic reductions and synthesis applications of organic azides

Known for over a century, organic azides are compounds of significant interest. Organic azides are potentially very useful compounds – they can be considered to function as ‘protected’ amines. In spite of certain hazards associated with these compounds, research into the chemistry of azides remains active. Chapter 1 of this thesis provides an overview of this considerable body of research in terms of the properties of organic azides, methods for their preparation, and aspects of their reactivity. The primary aim of this project was to examine the scope and utility of a catalytic azide reduction. Previous catalytic methods display certain practical limitations, which are overcome by the new system. As discussed in Chapter 2, this work included preparing a variety of azides and examining their reactivity in the catalytic azide reduction. This chemistry was then extended to include post-reduction transformations. Chapter 3 details our attempts to apply this method in the preparation of small molecule targets of interest