Ethyl 6-Hydroxyfulvene-1-Carboxylate: A Reagent Discriminating Primary Amines from Secondary Amines

A highly chemo-selective reaction was observed when ethyl 6-hydroxyfulvene-1-carboxylate 1 was treated with different nucleophiles such as primary amines, secondary amines, alcohols, and thiols. Among them, only primary amines are reactive toward 1 to afford the condensation products 3, which exhibit good stability under both weakly acidic and basic conditions. The condensation process proved to be reversible between different primary amines. On the basis of this observation, the chemical selectivity of typical primary aromatic amines was evaluated quantitatively by determining equilibrium constants of the condensation reactions with aniline as a reference. Moreover, the primary amines of 3 can be readily released upon treatment with aqueous ammonia, making 6-hydroxyfulvene-1-carboxylate 1 a promising protecting reagent for primary amines.