How do you reduce aromatic rings?
1 Answer
Sep 12, 2017
With difficulty......
Explanation:
The Birch reduction can convert SOME aromatic compounds to 1,4-cyclohexadienes by the action of alkali metals in the presence of some proton source (typically ethanol, or tert-butanol).
Of course, a brute force approach could be employed with catalytic hydrogenation....Such reduction requires forcing conditions, and would be quite indiscriminate.
