Didecyldimethylammonium bromide (DDAB): a universal, robust, and highly potent phase-transfer catalyst for diverse organic transformations

Didecyldimethylammonium bromide ( DDAB) has been scrutinized in comparison with traditional phase-transfer catalysts in variety of liquid-liquid reactions. It was found to be an exceptionally comprehensive, durable, and highly efficient phase-transfer catalyst (PTC) in a number of representative organic transformations such as C- and N-alkylations, isomerization, esterification, elimination, cyanation, bromination, and oxidation under very mild conditions of temperature and mixing. It was confirmed that DDAB is an exceedingly accessible and concurrently a highly liphophilic phase-transfer catalyst. This unprecedented characteristic renders DDAB to be a multipurpose catalyst that functions effectively both in mass transfer controlled and chemically controlled phase-transfer reactions. (c) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.